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0ass_Ei3_9- 
Book .Cl_X 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




TheWashington Publishing Co. 

"'.sri!NGTnN.,D.o. 



THE SHOW 



A.rt 



WASHINGTON. 



BY 



LOUIS ARTHUR COOLIDGE 

WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT NEW YCfaK RECORDER 

AND 

JAMES BURTON REYNOLDS 

WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT BOSTON ADVERTISER 






V W AS^ 

Jtiot 

WASHINGTON PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Washington, D. C. 

1894 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

White House Ways 5 

Around Grover's Council Board . . 18 

Sketched in the Senate 3 2 

Pat and Personal 48 

Angles and Curves 64 

At the Table and at the Bar ... 80 

Nine Black Bundles of Law .... 92 

Smoke Talks 102 

In the Speaker's Eye 118 

Hoke, "Shan," Sterling and "Dan" 134 

Told after Adjournment 148 

Our Midway Plaisance 165 

In the Millionaires' Club 182 

Heard in the Cloak-room 194 

Oratorical Oddities 2I 3 

Snap Shots at Random 229 



The Show 



AT 



Washington 



OVERTURE. 



Just a word before the curtain rises. The 
characters are men you all know ; you hear of 
them, read of them, think of them every day. 
In this word-comedy they will appear before 
you as they actually exist ; you will see them 
as they really look ; can hear them talk and 
watch them move. If some of their remarks 
or some of their actions are a surprise, remem- 
ber that they are playing in the broad glare of 
that strongest of calciums, the Washington at- 
mosphere, which brings out every character- 
istic and reveals some that have been hidden 
from public view by the make-up brush and 
the wig. It is a true sketch of Washington 
life, a picture of the every-day existence of the 
men who make laws, fame and trouble at the 
Nation's Capital. The motive of the piece is 
charity to all and malice towards none. The 
scenery is taken from life and the stage set- 
tings are real. 



The Show 



AT 



Washington. 



WHITE HOUSE WAYS. 



DURING Mr. Cleveland's former adminis- 
tration Judge Holman, of Indiana, es- 
corted to the White House an aged but viva- 
cious maiden lady of seventy, a niece of John 
Quincy Adams, who had spent her childhood 
there. She entered the East Room. 

Looking round in bewilderment, she ex- 
claimed: "What, is this really the same old 
5 



The Show at Washington. 



room ? Why, there used to stand a meal bar- 
rel, and in yonder corner were the washtubs, 
and from there over to there," pointing with 
her parasol, " a clothes-line was stretched, and 
in this corner we kept our playthings." 



The old lady was right. To-day the White 
House is greatly changed for the better from 
the time when the Presidents of far-away his- 
tory occupied it. But it has already become 
too small and too old-fashioned in its construc- 
tion and arrangement to be a proper home for 
the President of the United States. 



Mr. Cleveland, during his hours of business, 
sits at a massive desk constructed of oak tim- 
ber taken from the ship " Resolute," which 
was sent to the Arctic regions in 1852 by the 
English government to search for Sir John 
Franklin. The desk was presented to the 
United States by England some dozen years 
ago for use in the Executive Mansion. 

As Mr. Cleveland sits before this historic 
desk, busy over his work, he is a very differ- 
ent man from the Grover Cleveland who en- 



White House Ways. 



tered the White House in 1885. At the time 
he was first inaugurated he was a poor man, 
and he is now a rich one ; he then despised 
social life, now he courts it. 



When Mr. Cleveland first came to Washing- 
ton his tastes were all of the plainest character. 
He believed in most thorough Jeffersonian sim- 
plicity. When he came to the city to be in- 
augurated the second time it was in a palace 
on wheels, a special train of luxurious private 
cars. At the time he was made President in 
1885 he thought nothing about society as such 
except to shun it. He was strongly averse to 
entering a drawing-room, was a stranger to 
dinner parties, and he had looked upon the re- 
ceptions which he was obliged to give as Gov- 
ernor of the State of New York as the draw- 
backs of his official life. He had them carried 
out in the most perfunctory manner. 



Eight years ago Cleveland's wealth amounted 

perhaps to fifty thousand dollars — no more. 

Now he is a rich man — very rich — taking into 

account the short time which has elapsed, and 

2 



The Show at Washington. 



to-day his property, as estimated by the assess- 
ors' books of New York, will amount to over a 
quarter of a million. 

Up to within a couple of years he has lived 
in no luxurious way, but about two years ago 
he began an entirely new course of existence. 



Mr. Cleveland has three great friends ; and 
a queer trio they are. The friends are E. C. 
Benedict, of New York, the banker and broker ; 
Joe Jefferson, the actor ; and Richard Watson 
Gilder, the poet. Mr. Benedict is a Yankee, 
whose success has been made outside of Yan- 
keeland, and is represented entirely by dollars 
and cents. There is a strong tie between 
Cleveland and Benedict from the fact that each 
has achieved the ambition of his boyhood. 

When Grover Cleveland was a fat little boy 
at Fayetteville he wrote an essay in school one 
day, and pointed out the fact that George Wash- 
ington and Thomas Jefferson had both, by 
improving their time, become Presidents of the 
United States. Evidently his ambition lay in 
the same direction, and he has succeeded. 

Mr. Benedict as a boy was very fond of boats. 



White, House Ways. 9 

He longed to become a millionaire and own a 
big sail boat. He, too, has succeeded. 



Mr. Benedict first became interested in 
Grover Cleveland's personality by reading his 
speeches, and gradually went from the Repub- 
lican party over to the Democratic. Cleveland 
and Benedict became acquainted early in the 
period of four years which succeeded the in- 
auguration of Harrison. Mr. Cleveland was 
at that time very fond of Joe Jefferson ; Mr. 
Benedict's great friend was Edwin Booth; and 
Benedict and Cleveland were brought together 
by these two grand old men of the American 
stage. Benedict used to take Booth in his 
yacht, and Cleveland used to fish in Buzzard's 
Bay, overlooked by Joe Jefferson's house. 

The Benedict-Cleveland intimacy grew. Mr. 
Benedict took the ex-President off on his yacht. 
In fact, he transformed that vessel into a ferry 
boat to take his friend wherever he wanted to 
go- 

The Gilders lived at Marion, Mass., when 
Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland were three, and their 



The Show at Washington. 



friendship started at that time. It has been 
said that Mr. Gilder first loved Cleveland be- 
cause he thought Cleveland would make him 
Minister to Spain, and because he thought it 
would be appropriate for him to go to Spain as 
Washington Irving had done. But whatever 
was the cause, each month saw the two men 
better friends and more constant companions. 



President Cleveland has never been able to 
make use of many of the appliances of modern 
civilization in order to lessen the drudgery of 
his daily toil. Everything that he accomplishes 
he has to work out laboriously in his own way. 
He has never acquired the knack of getting 
other people to do his work for him, and he 
does not depend upon his subordinates even in 
the most insignificant details. 

He absorbs nothing and takes nothing on 
trust. It is more difficult for him to dictate a 
letter than it is to write it out with his own 
hand. There are three stenographers in the 
White House, but he rarely makes use of any of 
them. Even when it comes to the mechanical 
process of putting his messages into shape he 



White House Ways. n 

neglects to call any of his amanuenses to his 
assistance, but bends laboriously over his writing 
desk night after night until the documents are 
completed, and then turns them over to the 
copyists to make legible duplicates for trans- 
mission to Congress. 

President Harrison dictated almost all the 
personal letters to which he attached his signa- 
ture, and he also dictated his messages after 
jotting down the rough notes. 

This inability of Mr. Cleveland to delegate 
details to others is perhaps one of the reasons 
for his seclusion from the public. 



The President never walks abroad. Not 
since he was inaugurated for the second time 
has he been seen upon the streets of Washing- 
ton. President Harrison was accustomed to 
take an almost daily walk, and his tightly- 
buttoned figure was a familiar sight to the resi- 
dents of the city. 

But Mr. Cleveland does not even go to 
church. The public is never informed of his 
contemplated movements, and his departures 
from the White House are so timed as to be 



12 The Show at Washington. 

unobserved by any except the regular force of 
domestics and policemen. 



Mr. Cleveland's multitudinous and multifa- 
rious duties of state so engross his daily 
moments that he cannot devote much time 
to his personal attire. The executive sleeves 
may be worn glossy and the braid of his his- 
toric Prince Albert become frayed without ex- 
citing his attention. 

Mrs. Cleveland, however, supervises the 
President's wardrobe very carefully, and when 
she considers it necessary that new habili- 
ments should garb the President's form she 
quietly informs him that he should be mea- 
sured for them. 

So in spite of the great stress of public 
affairs burdening the executive mind a Wash- 
ington tailor slips into the White House every 
little while long enough to be closeted with the 
President on this momentous question. 



Mrs. Cleveland has a fad. She is an enthu- 
siastic amateur photographer, and she has a 
remarkably fine collection of photographs 



White House Ways. 13 

which she has taken herself. She took up the 
art and the kodak simultaneously during her 
early days at the White House, and many of 
her most interesting views were taken in the 
Executive Mansion. Since that time she has 
become much more proficient. She now has 
a pretentious camera, and is constantly adding 
to her photographic outfit. 

She has a large collection of views taken at 
Buzzard's Bay and along the Massachusetts 
coast, and many New York views and bits of 
country and mountain scenery. 



Mr. Cleveland's outfit of carriages is much 
more pretentious than was that of any of his 
predecessors. There are five of them, each a 
perfect specimen of the builder's art, constructed 
in the latest style. There is a black landau, 
with green trimmings, for which #2000 was 
paid ; a brougham, worth $1500 ; a stylish vic- 
toria, in which the President and Mrs. Cleve- 
land drive on bright days ; Mrs. Cleveland's 
phaeton, which was made to order, with a 
coachman's rumble behind, at a cost of #1000 ; 



14 The Show at Washington. 

and a surrey, which is the vehicle most used 
by the President himself. 

The White House stable contains four large 
bays, two of which are for the use of Mr. Cleve- 
land and two expressly for Mrs. Cleveland. 
They are all handsome animals, and were 
bought early in the present administration. 
Don Dickinson is entitled to the credit for 
selecting them. 



The President writes his messages in piece- 
meal, using a pad and a pen. He takes up 
the different subjects one by one, and at last 
fits the bits into the mosaic which constitutes 
the document as prepared for the Government 
printer. He is a remarkably ready penman. 
His hand is small and cramped, but he writes 
rapidly and he revises little. He has a good 
command of language, and he likes out-of-the- 
way expressions. 



The White House mail contains every day 
between seventy- five and one hundred letters 
addressed to Mrs. Cleveland. Her correspond- 
ence is as burdensome as is that of the most 



White House Ways. 15 

energetic business woman in the United States, 
and a great deal more extensive than that of 
the average business man. 

With comparatively few exceptions the effu- 
sions come from people in whom she can have 
no. earthly interest. Most of them are written 
by women. The feminine mind seems to re- 
coil from inditing correspondence to the Presi- 
dent in person. 

The daily mails are full of pathos, as well as 
humor. Want, misery and beggary find their 
way into the White House with heart-touching 
appeals. Pleas for money, for advice and even 
for clothing are received there almost daily. 
They seldom reach the eyes of the amiable 
woman for whom they are intended. It would 
be too great a burden for her and too severe a 
strain upon her sympathies. 



Mr. Cleveland never wears gloves. At least, 
nobody has ever been able to see them on his 
hands. He has worn no gloves at church the 
few times he has been there since his inaugura- 
tion, and when he is seen riding he wears 
none, Even on his inauguration day, which 



The Show at Washington. 



was bitterly cold, he was not only bare- 
headed, but bare-handed, as he faced the 
northwest wind and flying snow to consecrate 
himself again to the American people. 



When Miss Ruth Cleveland goes out to play 
in the rear of the White House a procession of 
considerable size emerges from the door of the 
Executive Mansion, and the whole proceeding 
is marked with a great deal of formality. 
First comes the nurse with an armful of toys, 
then a policeman, then two dogs, then another 
nurse holding Miss Ruth by the hand and then 
one of the White House guards. The proces- 
sion is always formed in the same way, and it 
makes its appearance in the garden of the 
White House daily in any weather short of a 
blizzard. 

Miss Ruth's favorite toy is an immense baby 
carriage, with an elaborate white silk parasol, 
a present from an admirer away out in Califor- 
nia, and a wonder both in size and workman- 
ship. She gets most amusement, however, in 
disfiguring the gravel walks of the White 
House grounds with a little common ten-cent 



White House Ways. 17 

spade. Red is Ruth's color. Her spade, her 
bucket, her tin pail and her cart are all of this 
hue ; and she generally wears a red cloak and 
hat. 

Her great pets are the two dogs, a beautiful 
Scotch collie and a black and tan terrier. 
When Miss Cleveland is at play the White 
House gates in the rear of the house are 
securely locked, and the little lady is visible 
only from the windows of the Treasury Depart- 
ment across the way. 



The "White House cocktail" is a plain 
whiskey,— only just twice as large as an ordinary 
whiskey. There is only one establishment in 
America where it is served. 



AROUND GROVERS COUNCIL 
BOARD. 



THE disappointment of the Cabinet is Secre- 
tary Carlisle. The Treasury Department 
does not fit him, and he knows it ; he is not 
well adapted to its executive duties, and he 
knows that, too. He longs for his old seat in 
the Senate, he longs for his old place in the 
Speaker's chair, but above all, he longs for a 
right to wear a black gown and sit on the 
Supreme bench. Carlisle's strength as a 
public man consists, not so much in any 
particular capacity as a constructive legisla- 
tor, as in the logical quality of his mind. In 
the realm of pure reason he is probably not 
excelled by any of his contemporaries; his 
mind is limpid, clear and crystalline; his 
methods of reasoning are never involved or 
complicated; he possesses a power of lumi- 
nous statement which gives to his political 
18 



Around Grover's Council Board. 19 

utterances the judicial quality of a decision 
from a bench. While he was Speaker his 
rulings, delivered frequently without prepara- 
tion and with little opportunity for considera- 
tion, were models of conciseness and complete- 
ness. 



Carlisle is a lawyer by instinct ; his mind is 
adapted by nature to the comprehension of 
legal principles. If he had taken his rise 
among the Tennessee mountains, a hundred 
miles from a law book, he might have created 
the elements of the science out of his own 
inner consciousness, as Pascal is said to have 
worked his way through the first problems of 
Euclid before he had ever seen a book on 
mathematics or been told that there was such 
a thing as geometry. 



But he is as distinctly a failure in the busi- 
ness of politics as he is a success in the science 
of law. He abhors details and bargains, and 
is as helpless as a child in the presence of po- 
litical plots and plans. With all his prestige, 
it was more through outside pressure than 



20 The Show at Washington. 

through any skill of his own that he succeeded 
in winning the Kentucky Senatorship, and in 
the Congressional election of 1886 he was 
caught napping and found his majority whit- 
tled down to so fine a point that a contest for 
his seat was carried into the House, over which 
he presided as Speaker. If he had known 
anything about politics he would never have 
left the Senate, where his fame was secure, in 
order to become the monumental failure of the 
Cleveland Cabinet. 



There is an old-fashioned courtesy and gen- 
tleness in the bearing of the Secretary of the 
Treasury which make him one of the most de- 
lightful and approachable of men. It is the 
hardest thing in the world for him to deny a 
favor, and he never treats an inferior with any- 
thing but good nature and polite consideration. 
When by himself he is usually engaged in 
deep thought, and he has been known to walk 
the entire length of Pennsylvania avenue in 
seeming unconsciousness of his surroundings. 
When in this mood his most intimate friend 
might pass without a glance of recognition ; 
but even when most deeply absorbed he will 



Around Grover's Council Board. 2 1 

respond easily and without the slightest show 
of embarrassment to an entire stranger who 
may venture to address him, and he is ready to 
launch into conversation upon any topic, no 
matter how foreign it may be to the subject 
upon which his mind has been concentrated. 



Carlisle is democratic in every fibre of his 
being ; he makes no outward distinction in in- 
dividuals and treats his bootblack with as 
thoughtful courtesy as he would show to one 
of his colleagues in the Cabinet. He has been 
seen to give his seat in the street car to a col- 
ored girl with a laundry basket, and to do it 
with as profound a bow and as deferential a 
touch of the hat as if he were showing atten- 
tion to the finest lady of the land. He is the 
only member of the Cabinet who habitually 
goes into a public barber shop to get shaved. 
Every day he walks over from the department 
to a little shop in the basement of the Riggs 
house, and emerges a few minutes later look- 
ing as if he had had his face washed. His in- 
separable companion is a pinch of fine cut, 
which he chews with vigor and persistency. 



22 The Show at Washington. 

" Joe " Blackburn says that Carlisle is the 
most remarkable man he ever knew. He de- 
clares that the Secretary of the Treasury can 
tell the contents of a book without looking at 
it, and give the synopsis of an argument on 
being told the name of the author. 



Secretary Herbert is the only member of the 
Cabinet who can be called a specialist in his 
own department. Mr. Herbert is fitted to be 
Secretary of the Navy and for no other place 
around Mr. Cleveland's council board. He is 
a sailor, every inch of him ; he knows a ship 
from masthead to keel ; he can box the com- 
pass like an old salt and could walk the deck 
as an admiral or climb the rigging as a sailor. 
He has sailed before the mast and has been 
taught the art of seamanship in the school of 
experience. It is impossible for him to follow 
the example of Secretary " Dick " Thompson 
and express surprise at finding a ship hollow, 
for he knows nautical affairs as well as if he 
had just finished a course of study down at 
Annapolis. 



Around Grovers Council Board. 23 

For years he has been unconsciously prepar- 
ing himself for his present position, for in Con- 
gress he was chairman of the naval affairs com- 
mittee, and devoted most of his time to the 
study of ships and their models. He is the 
careful man of the Cabinet. He is too careful. 
He has the Clevelandesque characteristic of 
not being able to throw upon his subordinates 
the care of minor matters and insists upon 
giving his own attention to them. He goes 
over every paper that comes before him with 
scrupulous care, tries to keep track of every- 
thing that is going on, and cumbers his mind 
with a lot of wearisome detail which could be 
attended to just as well by subordinates. It 
would take him two days to accomplish what 
Secretary Whitney used to accomplish in as 
many hours. But then Whitney had marvel- 
ous facility in rushing business. He was a 
wonder as an executive officer. 



When Herbert has any work of special im- 
portance on hand he always goes home to 
attend to it. He has the Southern habit of 
wishing to sit with his feet on his desk and 
3 



24 The Show at Washington. 

gossip with all who come to see him. No 
matter how busy he may be he is too good- 
natured to decline to see any respectable per- 
son who happens to send in a card ; but at home 
he can shut himself up in his room and dig 
away without interruption. He goes riding 
every afternoon, as soon as he can get away 
from his desk, in a very high old-fashioned top 
buggy, drawn by two sorrel horses. On these 
afternoon trips the secretary generally takes 
along one of his bureau chiefs, with whom he 
talks over important matters of department 
business that he has not had time to attend to 
during the rush of the official day. 



He is never so happy as when in his office 
figuring on the cost of ships to be built by the 
Government. He likes the work, and ship 
building is his hobby. He would make a 
splendid head of a ship yard or an excellent 
bank cashier. He has a wonderful ability at 
figures; he is a regular adding machine, and 
can foot up a column with lightning rapidity ; 
he still reads Euclid and trigonometry. In his 
library there are hundreds of mathematical 



Around Grover's Council Board, 25 

\vvjrks, and he reads them with the zest that 
otners give to the latest magazines. He is 
simple in his tastes and%simple in his habits. 
His greatest extravagance is for gloves. 



Gresham is the first Secretary of State we 
have ever had who did not allow himself to 
become submerged in the peculiar atmosphere 
of the department as soon as he began to 
breathe it. He is the first man to conceive 
that there is nothing vitally distinctive or 
sacred about the place to make it radically 
different from any other department of the 
government. The conception is original, and 
for those who have been accustomed to tread 
softly and speak in whispers on entering the 
stately corridors it is refreshing. 



Gresham takes hold of the business of state 
in the same spirit that he might take hold of a 
big case at law or that he might have grappled 
with a sizable contract while he was in charge 
of the postal service. He does not approach 
diplomatic questions with a feeling of awe, and 
he does not regard the emissaries of foreign 



26 The Show at Washington. 

powers as invested with sacred attributes. He 
regards it as a great joke to keep the repre- 
sentative of a little South American republic 
cooling his heels in the corridor while he is 
spinning yarns with Hoosiers in the diplomatic 
room. 



There never was a Cabinet officer who 
adorned himself with fewer official frills. Not 
long ago a convention of Baptist clergymen 
was in town. Gresham had started out to a 
Cabinet meeting with a lighted cigar in his 
mouth as usual, and his hat tipped back on his 
head. Just as he reached the state department 
elevator he bethought himself of something 
and went back to his desk to attend to it. He 
sat down and began writing with hat and cigar 
still in evidence. While he was writing, in 
walked a delegation of the reverends. Gresham 
glanced up, saw that his visitors had no busi- 
ness in particular, turned to his desk again 
and continued to write and smoke, apparently 
oblivious of the fact that the sightseers had 
ranged themselves in the corner of the room 
and were studying his points and commenting 
on them with as much freedom as if he had 



Around Gr over's Council Board. 27 

been a rare specimen from the Smithsonian. 
Imagine Blaine permitting that, or Bayard, or 
Frelinghuysen ! But it is the sort of thing that 
is apt to happen any day with Gresham. 



Gresham is suspicious by nature. He trusts 
nobody, and is always afraid that some one of 
his subordinates is trying to take advantage of 
him. If you were to see him in the morning 
and were to mention incidentally that he had 
better keep his eye on one of his clerks, the 
suggestion would sink into his mind. He would 
think it over until he got to his desk in the de- 
partment, and by that time he would have con- 
cluded that the clerk was a dangerous fellow to 
have around, and he would promptly chop off 
his official head. After it was all over he would 
give the poor fellow a trial and a chance to ex- 
onerate himself, but in the meantime the posi- 
tion would have been filled by somebody else. 



Gresham is the same outside the department 
as in. He lives at the Arlington, and he roams 
about in the lobby in the evening, sits on the 
sofas under the electric lights and spins yarns. 



28 The Show at Washington. 

r Vhen he gets to his own room he peels off his 
coat, unbuttons his vest, throws himself at full 
length on the sofa, flings his hands over his 
head and smokes and talks. Sometimes his 
boots are on, but more often he is in his stock- 
ing feet. If anybody knocks at the door he 
sings out, "Come in," without taking the 
trouble to get up. And if the new-comer 
happens to be a stranger it takes the secre- 
tary about three minutes to find out who he is, 
what part of the country he came from, and all 
about the people, the industries and the crops. 
He is eternally on the hunt for information, and 
he levies tribute on every intelligence that floats 
within reach. 



Richard Olney is the discontented member 
of the Cabinet. He is a victim of Grover Cleve- 
land's capacity for making others sacrifice their 
own interests to his. Had Olney been gifted 
with the power of looking into the future he 
would never have accepted the office of attor- 
ney-general. Had he realized what was before 
him he would not have given up his income of 
#50,000 a year as railroad attorney for the 



Around Grover's Council Board. 29 

empty honor of being a member of anybody's 
Cabinet. He does not like his position, and 
the only thing that cheers him up is the thought 
that he may some time be able to get out of it. 
He does not feel at home in an atmosphere 
where so many statesmen have a pleasant habit 
of slapping one another on the back and in- 
dulging in side-splitting narratives of dubious 
character. 



Olney knows nothing about politics and cares 
nothing. He labors under the delusion that the 
principal function of the office of attorney- 
general ought to be something else than sitting 
in judgment upon the merits and claims of ap- 
plicants for $1200 positions. It is difficult for 
him to realize that, in becoming the chief law 
officer of the government, he accepted a posi- 
tion which called for as much political astute- 
ness as legal acumen, and he has wished a 
hundred times that he was back in his Boston 
office where he could lock his door to all in- 
truders and devote himself without interruption 
to the consideration of knotty legal problems 
and the preparation of masterly briefs. 



30 The Show at Washington. 

Mr. Olney has been a corporation lawyer all 
his life. He has been trained to believe that 
he owed his first duty to the men who em- 
ployed him, and that so long as he won their 
cases in court or gave them unimpeachable 
legal advice it was of no earthly consequence 
what sort of an impression he made on the 
public. He had for years been steeped in an 
atmosphere of law and logic, and he finds him- 
self out of his element in a position where as 
much depends on skill in handling men as in 
laying down incontrovertible principles of law. 



The attorney-general works as hard as any 
member of the Cabinet. The work that he 
has to do is unpicturesque enough. He is 
early at his desk in the morning and late in 
leaving it at night. But out of his office he is 
still attorney-general. He becomes interested 
in a case and spends his evenings in looking it 
up, and devotes his spare time to thinking it 
out. His hobby is a combination of law and 
tennis, and he prefers the society of a law 
book to that of any person in Washington. 
He is by far the best tennis player in Wash- 



Around Grover's Council Board. 31 

ington. In former years he was regarded as 
one of the best players in the country, and in 
Boston used to practice with such men as 
Dwight and Sears. The attorney-general is 
also fond of base ball in a dignified way. He 
looks over the diamond with a strictly judicial 
eye ; he weighs the qualities of the two teams 
carefully, and then looks to see the better team 
win. 



SKETCHED IN THE SENATE. 



THERE is no more mild-appearing membei* 
of the Senate than " Matt " Quay. As 
he sits calmly and quietly in his seat in the 
front row it is hard to imagine that he is the 
man who has so long been the target of news- 
paper criticism in all parts of the country. 
With his glasses and quiet air he looks much 
more like a student or college professor than 
like the politician he is. He is not a born 
orator, for, although apparently perfectly at 
home upon the floor, his voice is very weak, 
and it is with apparent effort that he makes 
himself heard throughout the chamber. He has 
an abundance of confidence in himself. His 
actions are performed with an air of decision 
that betokens a perfect self-satisfaction. He is 
a great reader of newspapers, and each morn- 
ing his desk is piled high with the principal 
journals of the country. His is a very notice- 
able figure in the Senate, for he is the only 
32 



Sketched in the Senate. 33 

member of that august body who does not 
customarily dress in black. The Pennsylvania 
Senator's favorite attire is a suit of light blue 
and gray, and he looks like a bluebird who 
has by mistake wandered into a flock of crows. 



Probably the most regular Senator in his 
habits is Walthall, of Mississippi. He cannot 
be induced to keep late hours, and invitations 
to evening entertainments fall upon barren 
ground when sent to him. Like our traditional 
ancestors, he obeys the ancient maxim of early 
to bed and early to rise. Promptly at nine P. 
M. he retires, and is awake and sipping a cup 
of hot coffee by four A. M. A small coffee 
pot and contents are prepared the night before 
and placed conveniently near. When the 
Senator awakes the next morning he makes 
his coffee himself on a little gas stove while 
his family and household are peacefully slum- 
bering. After his coffee is finished he smokes 
a cigar, and is then ready to attend to his Con- 
gressional work. 



34 The Show at Washington. 

Roger Mills has carried over with him to the 
Senate all the startling oratorical habits he ac- 
quired in the pugilistic atmosphere of the House. 

The impulsive Texan has never been able to 
train himself to the wearing of cuffs. He tried 
them once when he was going to make a great 
speech in the House, but as soon as he began 
to wade into his subject he tore them off with 
an exclamation of disgust and threw them down 
in the aisle. 

As he warms up in debate he begins to hitch 
up his coat sleeves in turn, until he has them 
both rolled up above the elbows, displaying to 
the galleries an arm length of immaculately 
white linen and a wrist as round and fair as a 
woman's. 



Picture to yourself a small, red-bearded face 
that might easily be taken for the countenance 
of the proprietor of a second-hand clothing 
establishment, a short form of stocky build, 
clothed in garments of the latest style and 
most fashionable cut, the neck adorned with a 
massive tie of flaming red, and you have before 
your mind's eye Senator Calvin S. Brice. 



Sketched in the Senate. 35 

Brice lives in New York, but represents an 
Ohio constituency. He is neither an oratorical 
nor a working Senator. He is in the Senate 
principally because it is easier to keep in 
touch with the Democratic party all over the 
country from a seat there than from any other 
point. 

He spends most of his time in his retiring- 
room holding conferences with Hill and Gor- 
man. When he is in his seat during the ses- 
sion he divides his time between talking with 
Hill, who sits next to him, and reading the 
New York papers. 



The most winsome smile in either branch of 
Congress is the property of Senator Lindsay, 
of Kentucky. It is perpetual, irradiating and 
irresistible, and it gives to its possessor an as- 
pect of everlasting benevolence. 

Carlisle's successor is something of an orator, 
and his speeches are always earnest and fre- 
quently impassioned. But no matter how earn- 
est and impassioned they may be, every sentence 
is embedded in a smile. 

He has worn it waking and sleeping, musing 



36 The Show at Washington, 

and speaking, until it has become imperishably 
fixed upon his physiognomy. 



Lindsay is one of the best-known men in his 
section. Some years ago a convention was held 
in his State to nominate a candidate for the 
Kentucky Supreme Court. Lindsay was in the 
State Senate, after having served a term as 
deputy sheriff. For a time he figured as a 
candidate for the judgeship. 

Believing that he could not be nominated he 
withdrew, and neither his county nor the ad- 
joining one was represented in the convention. 
There were a number of candidates. The con- 
vention got into a deadlock, and every once in 
awhile an enthusiastic attorney, of Hopkins- 
ville, would rise, and, half in fun and half in 
earnest, would nominate William Lindsay. 

Along about the fourth day, after this attorney 
had been told to sit down a hundred times, the 
convention finally took his persistent advice 
and nominated Lindsay. 



Senator Vilas is in constant trouble over the 
way in which his name is mispronounced. 



Sketched in the Senate. 37 

Senator Pettigrew, of North Dakota, tells a story 
of an incident that occurred when they were 
youngsters practicing law together. 

Vilas was pleading a case before a district 
judge one day, and became very much exas- 
perated at the way in which the court treated 
him. Finally, he could stand it no longer, and 
said to the judge : " Sir, you are a jackass." 

The judge calmly leaned over his bench, and 
replied : " That is a statement that may or may 
not be susceptible of proof. But there is one 
thing that needs no proof, and which cannot 
be disproved, and that is that you are a Vil-as." 



Peffer bears a peculiar relation to his asso- 
ciates in the Senate. 

Nobody takes him seriously, and yet every- 
body seems to be fond of him. The Kansas 
Populist is blessed with a sweet and almost 
child-like disposition, which, coupled with his 
evident sincerity of purpose, makes distrust or 
dislike of him out of the question. 

Perhaps one secret of his popularity is the 
fact that he is never in anybody's else way. 



38 The Show at Washington. 

Senator Gorman's face would not attract at- 
tention as that of a great statesman and a great 
leader. It is small, smooth-shaven, with clean- 
cut features and eyes in which one can almost 
see political schemes evolving. 

Gorman is a very short man, rather stout 
than otherwise, and constantly increasing in 
weight. He is one of the smallest men, physi- 
cally, now occupying a seat in the halls of 
Congress. 

When he is pointed out to visitors to the 
Capitol, especially to those who understand his 
present power in the Democratic party, the in- 
voluntary remark of the stranger is always : 
"Is that Gorman ? I never would have 
believed it." 



One of the best-known figures on the Wash- 
ington streets is Senator Ransom, of North 
Carolina. He is a typical Southerner of the 
old school, and is one of the handsomest men 
in the Senate. He wears the conventional and 
becoming soft felt hat of his locality, a black 
frock coat and a wide expanse of shirt bosom. 

He is renowned for having the smallest feet 
of any member of the Senate. He is very 



Sketched in the Senate. 39 

proud of them, too, and always wears shoes 
that fit them like a glove. Old members of 
the Senate say that in former days he was even 
more debonair than he is to-day. 

Now his closely-trimmed black beard is 
pretty well sprinkled with gray, and his coat 
sags a little at the corners and shines a little at 
the seams, as though he didn't care so much 
for its looks as for the comfort of old friend- 
ship that it gives him. 



The Chesterfield of the Senate is Aldrich, of 
Rhode Island. Always perfectly at ease, cour- 
teous and responsive, handsome in face and 
figure, trimly dressed and athletic in bearing, 
he has many points of resemblance to Chester 
A. Arthur, and, like the late President, is a 
man of the world to his finger tips. 

If Rhode Island were as big as Ohio, or as 
far West as Colorado, Aldrich might some day 
be a Presidential quantity. 

As it is he must content himself with being 
one of the most popular men in the Senate, 
,and one of three or four who manipulate legis- 
lation when his party is in control. 



46 The Show at Washington. 

"Joe" Blackburn, of Kentucky, is one of 
the most companionable men in public life. 
He is endowed with all of the peculiar lovable 
qualities of the genuine Kentuckian, and any 
man whose foot ever pressed the blue grass 
carpet instinctively warms to him. 

It must be confessed of Blackburn, though, 
that a great many things are more congenial 
to him than the proceedings of the dignified 
body of which he is an erratic member. He 
dislikes the routine work and study of states- 
manship, and he carries his working library in 
his hat. 

Blackburn says that in his early days he 
very narrowly escaped becoming a lawyer of 
great erudition, and that he was rescued by 
kindly counsel. When he was a youthful prac- 
titioner at Lexington the leading criminal law- 
yer of Northern Kentucky was old "Joe" Baird, 
of Louisville, a man of meagre education, but 
possessed of much shrewd sense, and a jury 
pleader who could not be matched. 

One day the young attorney, who had al- 
ready gained an enviable reputation, paid a 
visit to the elder's office. The room was al- 
most bare of furniture. In the middle was a 



Sketched in the Senate. 



rickety table, and on the table two well- 
thumbed books — a copy of the statutes of 1842 
and the criminal code. 

"Where do you keep your library, Mr. 
Baird," inquired the youngster. The old 
man pointed suggestively to the volumes on 
the table. "Don't never buy any books," he 
said; "they'll only bother you." 

Blackburn has always lived up to that advice. 



About the best-dressed man in the Senate is 
Gorman's protege, Gibson, of Maryland, or 
"Charley" Gibson, as he is known to all his 
friends, and " Terrapin " Gibson, as he is known 
to those who are not especially intimate with 
him. There is a strong resemblance between 
his portrait and the portrait of the late Roscoe 
Conkling, but the actual resemblance is not so 
great. He has a portly figure — in fact, so portly 
that his walk is always leisurely and dignified. 



Pettigrew, of South Dakota, lived for many 
years in Sioux City in a log cabin of his own 
handiwork. This was not long ago, for the 
Senator is not now much beyond forty years of 



4.2 The Skoii) at Washington. 

age. He was a Vermont farmer's boy, living 
many years not far from the New York State 
line. 

When attracted to the West he walked most 
of the distance to his new home. His first in- 
vestment of money was a lucky one, for he 
bought some of the land upon which now 
stands the best part of Sioux City, and in this 
his present large fortune had its source. 



Shoup, of Idaho, is a fighter. He grew 
strong fighting among Indians and despera- 
does. Born in the East, he started out for 
Pike's Peak when he was twenty-two years of 
age, and during the war he was one of the in- 
dependent scouts of the Colorado volunteers. 
He has been connected with all the Indians 
and desperadoes of the West. 



On the street Senator Palmer, of Illinois, 
would never be taken by those who do not 
know him for a piece of possible Presidential 
timber. In fact, he would much more prob- 
ably be selected by bunco men as the most 



Sketched in the Senate. 43 

available candidate for their special mode of 
treatment. 

Wearing at all times a huge slouch hat, which 
gives him the appearance of having just made 
his escape from some boundless prairie of the 
West, with his glistening white chin whisker 
as the only hirsute adornment of his face, and 
the most genial of smiles, he looks like a second 
edition of Joshua Whitcomb in the streets of 
New York. 

Palmer has one great peculiarity. This is 
his necktie ; the peculiarity of the necktie is 
in its appearance and disappearance. In rainy 
weather he always wears it, while when the 
skies are bright he dispenses with it and trusts 
to his wide whisker to cover this Peffer defect 
in his toilet. 

Senator Peffer, by the way, sits just across 
the chamber from the Senator from Illinois, 
and the day has not yet come when both of 
these distinguished statesmen have worn a 
necktie at the same time. 



Filled to the brim with free coinage ideas is 
Senator Stewart, of Nevada. His is a striking 



44 The Show at Washington. 

figure, and draws, the curious eyes of sight- 
seers. He is a stalwart and stately veteran 
from snow-capped Nevada, the frosted silver 
State. Silver white is his hair. Silvered, too, 
the patriarch's beard that flows over his breast. 
Yet he still lacks several years of the patriarch's 
age of three score and ten. 

His face is deeply lined, but there is little 
stoop to the broad shoulders. His cheek is 
ruddy and his eye is clear. His bearing is 
genial, but dominant at times to the verge of 
domineering. He leans on nobody. He forms 
and asserts his own opinions with racy vigor. 
He belongs to the grand army of pioneers — to 
the virgin earth breakers. 

He is one of the Argonauts who braved the 
dragon danger in its hundred forms and won 
their golden fleece with pick and pan. The 
story of his life is a dream. He still holds the 
stage as a leading old man, but in his zenith he 
was a star of the first magnitude. Then he 
was a State maker — the master-mind in the 
most marvelous mining camp this world has 
seen on the crest of that marvel of nature, 
the Comstock lode. 



Sketched in the Senate. 45 

Senator Morgan, of Alabama, never lacks 
for something to say. Words fall from his lips 
with an easy, gliding motion, which demon- 
strates that in his case mind and mouth are in 
perfect harmony. Indeed, the Senator is some- 
thing like a crowded newspaper, where the 
trouble is rather to decide upon what to leave 
out than what to put in. 

Back in the Forty-fifth Congress, just before 
the close of the second session, Morgan suc- 
ceeded in getting a private bill through both 
houses, and it went to the White House, Mr. 
Hayes then being President. Word came to 
Morgan that the President was going to inter- 
pose a pocket veto, that is, decline to sign the 
bill ; and as there were not ten days of life left 
to Congress the measure would fail. 

Senator Morgan was wroth. He declared 
himself thus : " All right. If Mr. Hayes will 
not sign my bill there will be no more legisla- 
tion this session. I am going to speak on the 
next measure that comes before the Senate, 
and I will not finish until the session has ex- 
pired." 

Only about thirty-six hours of life remained 
to the Forty-fifth Congress when Morgan an- 



46 The Show at Washington. 

hounced his intention of talking the session 
out. He got the floor and began speaking. As 
there is no limitation of debate in the Senate, 
a Senator can talk as long as he can think of 
anything to say or can stand on his feet. 
Morgan had talked for four hours before his 
fellow-Senators became aware of his purpose ; 
then there was hurrying to and fro. 

There were important bills yet unacted upon, 
besides the private measures, of which nearly 
every Senator had one or more he hoped still 
to get through. And there was Morgan, stand' 
ing easily erect, displaying no sign of physical 
fatigue, the words rolling from his mouth in a 
placid stream, apparently as unending and in- 
exhaustible as the stream from a perennial 
spring. 

A hasty conference was held in the cloak- 
room, and two Republican Senators were ap- 
pointed a committee to go to the White House, 
explain the situation to President Hayes and 
endeavor to induce him to sign Senator Mor- 
gan's bill, and so shut off his embarrassing 
flow of words. Hayes laughed at the predica- 
ment of the Senate and signed the bill. The 
welcome news was telegraphed to the Capitol, 



Sketched in the Senate. 47 

and the dispatch was quietly handed to Sena- 
tor Morgan. 

He read it, smiled complacently, closed his 
six-hour speech in about a minute, and sat 
down to enjoy his victory. 



PAT AND PERSONAL. 



SPRINGER, of Illinois, is the liveliest mem 
ber of the House. Here is a little story 
that Senator Cullom relates. It was back in 
the Forty-ninth Congress. The Illinois Senator 
went into the House one day and found it in 
the greatest excitement. Members were run- 
ning up and down the aisles, and Springer's 
stentorian voice was heard shouting above the 
turmoil and confusion. 

Finding that nobody paid any attention to 
his remarks he jumped upon his desk, but 
before he could free himself for action he felt 
a restraining hand upon his coat-tails. " Bill " 
Morrison, who was leader of the House that 
session, gently pulled his vociferous colleague 
back to the floor. 

" Springer," he said confidingly, placing his 
hand on the other's shoulder, "you'd better 
quiet down, It's no use. You can't distinguish 
48 



Pat and Personal. 49 

yourself in this House unless you get on the 
Speaker's desk and stand on your head." 



Young Fred Dubois is one of the most pop- 
ular members of the Senate, as he was of the 
House, where he sat for a term or two as a 
delegate from the territory which he was chiefly 
instrumental in transforming into a State. He 
looks like a boy, and it is not many years since 
he was playing foot ball at Yale. 

The youthful Senator tells of an experience 
he had at the time of his election to the Senate, 
which for a short time made him feel decidedly 
inconsequential. 

There was a long and bitter contest in the 
Idaho Legislature over the choice of the first 
Senators from that State. As soon as the fight 
was over, Dubois, flushed with victory, started 
for home. He reached his town about dusk, 
and his bosom swelled with pride as he ob- 
served the entire population gathered at the 
station with a brass band in waiting, fireworks 
in reserve and all the paraphernalia for a vocif- 
erous and blazing welcome. 

Almost overcome by his feelings, he mounted 



50 The Show at Washington. 

on the first available eminence and began an 
address of thanks. What was his chagrin to 
see that his remarks fell upon deaf ears, and 
to observe the crowd gradually fall away from 
him and gather about an insignificant-looking 
individual who had come on the same train. 

It didn't take him a second to descend from 
his perch, and then he learned that a new hotel 
was to be opened that evening, and that the 
proprietor had arranged for a brilliant celebra- 
tion, the principal feature of which was to be 
his own grand reception at the station as a 
benefactor of the town. 

"It was rather trying," adds Dubois, "but 
I had all the satisfaction of it for a minute, and 
no bills to pay, except the usual obligations 
attendant- upon a slip of that kind." 



Tom Reed has one weakness that manifests 
itself daily. This is his habit of examining the 
pictures displayed in photographers' windows. 
With his gray overcoat buttoned tightly around 
his portly form and looking as if it had been 
put on in a great hurry, with its collar half 
turned uo and half turned down, and his hands, 



Pat and Personal. 51 

pushed down into his pockets as far as they 
can go, he bowls along Pennsylvania avenue. 

But the windows of a photograph gallery 
have a wonderful fascination for him, and he 
cannot resist the temptation to stop before each 
one of them and study the pictures long and 
carefully. 



Senator Irby, the hot-headed Populist from 
South Carolina, who succeeded the courtly 
Wade Hampton, prides himself on his adhesion 
to the code duello as the gentlemanly way of 
settling a dispute. He has engaged in several 
affaires d' honneur, and on one occasion winged, 
if he did not kill, his adversary. 

Irby's first duel, however, was not fought 
among the Carolina pines, but on the en- 
lightened soil of Massachusetts. The Senator 
was then a student at Harvard. Although a 
sophomore at the time, he was exceedingly 
"fresh." He was loud in his praise of the 
South, of the bravery of its men and the 
beauty of its women. The code he advocated 
valorously. 

One day he got into an altercation with a son 
of one of the Scribners, of the New York pub- 



52 The Show at Washingiorl. 

lishing house of that name. By preconcerted 
arrangement the matter was allowed to go to 
the length of a challenge. Seconds were ap- 
pointed and the time of meeting and the other 
preliminaries were arranged. At daybreak one 
morning the boys went out to see the sham 
duel. 

Irby was the only one who was in dead 
earnest. Graphite bullets, which were crushed 
to powder when they were crammed down the 
barrels of the duelling pistols, were the deadly 
pellets used. Scribner won the toss for posi- 
tion and the first fire. The weapons were 
loaded in Irby's presence. Still he did not 
weaken. The principals took their places. 

Irby stood erect with set teeth, while Scrib- 
ner's second slowly called "Fire, one, two, 
three." As the last word was pronounced the 
report of Scribner' s pistol rang out on the 
morning air. Irby, of course, was unhurt. 
When it came his turn to fire he levelled his 
pistol, took deliberate aim and pulled the trig- 
ger ; as the smoke rolled away Scribner threw 
up his hands dramatically, spun around, 
lurched and fell. 

The physician selected to do his part rushed 



Pat and Personal. 53 

forward, leaned over the fallen student and 
poured a vial of some red stuff over his shirt 
front. Irby came to view the ghastly face and 
supposed bloody corpse of his antagonist. 
The doctor without a moment's hesitation pro- 
nounced Scribner dead. 

Irby was then duly impressed with the se- 
rious consequences of his deed. He hastily 
gathered his effects together and took the first 
train for South Carolina. It was several weeks 
before he learned the nature of the trick that 
had been played on him. He never went back 
to Harvard College. 



Senator Hoar has a bunch of keys that are 
historic. When he is in the Senate chamber 
these keys invariably dangle upon his finger 
and they are now regarded as a barometer of 
the transmutations of his mind. 

When he swings them with easy and regular 
motion it is a sign that the Massachusetts Sena- 
tor is at peace with all the world and that what 
is going on in the Senate is satisfactory to him ; 
when the keys swing and the motion is not 
regular it signifies that he is in doubt what to 



54 The Show at Washington. 

think of the transactions ; when they tap the 
desk petulantly some idea is being expounded 
that is wrong, according to his views, but not 
worth while answering or contradicting ; when 
some Populist gets up and proceeds to give 
forth the most alarming views the keys swing 
playfully before the Senator's smooth face • 
swung in a long, sinuous curve in the air the 
keys denote disgust and a desire to reprove 
and reproach ; and when they are swung gaily 
at the end of his finger in rapid motion the 
Massachusetts man is very much pleased with 
the proceedings. 

Senator Hoar's bunch of keys and their dif- 
ferent motions make a regular open book of 
his mental condition, and the galleries have 
learned to read the volume. 



One of the most interesting traits of Benton 
McMillin's character is his delightful assurance 
and his invulnerable self-esteem. He is so 
happily constituted that he never realizes when 
he has failed. He is thoroughly satisfied with 
himself, and always pictures himself on the top 
wave of success. Tom Reed fairly turns and 



Pat and Personal. 55 

roasts him on the spit, and after it is all over 
McMillin will throw himself into his seat and 
gaze about him with the most contented air in 
the world and a smile of triumph playing over 
his face. Everybody else realizes that he has 
been flayed alive, but he never thinks for a 
moment that he has not won a great oratorical 
success, and while his friends are questioning 
whether or not to commiserate him, he is wait- 
ing for everybody to hasten forward with con- 
gratulations. 

McMillin is a first-rate fellow, and you can't 
help liking him ; but he reminds one of old 
" Joe " Brown, of Georgia, and his experience 
with Ingalls. The venerable Georgian enter- 
tained the most profound contempt for the bril- 
liant Kansas Senator, and once, after Ingalls 
had delivered himself of an unusually exas- 
perating diatribe, Brown set himself to work 
upon a reply, which he had planned to be a 
masterpiece of severity and parliamentary in- 
vective. 

It really was a very fair effort, and the old 

man got it off with all the spirit that was in 

him. But as soon as he had taken his seat 

Ingalls rose to reply, and such a piece of scath- 

5 



$6 The Show at Washington. 

ing wit and sarcasm has seldom found a place 
in Congressional debate. It created a great 
sensation in Washington, and the supposed 
discomfiture of its unfortunate victim was tele- 
graphed all over the country. 

A week or two later Brown made a trip home 
to Atlanta. One of his old friends, who sup- 
posed that condolences were in order, ap- 
proached him and as delicately as he knew 
how broached the subject. "We've all been 
reading about that little skirmish of yours with 
Ingalls," he began, and was about to add a 
word of sympathy and encouragement when 
the Senator interrupted him. 

" Thank you, sir, thank you," said the old 
gentleman pompously. " I was just a trifle 
severe on Ingalls ; but he has no right to com- 
plain. He brought it all on himself. He de- 
served everything that he got." 



One of the luckiest men in the House is 
Gorman, of Michigan. The district from which 
he was originally elected was strongly Repub- 
lican. There were two much older Democrats 
in the district than he, and each had been the 



Pat and Personal. 57 

unsuccessful candidate of his party for Con- 
gress. That year the Democratic convention 
met, and, after tendering the nomination to 
both of the men who had formerly made the 
race and receiving a declination from both, the 
body practically adjourned and many of the 
delegates left for their homes. 

Some of the delegates, however, thought 
that it would never do to let the contest go by 
default, so they held a stump convention, and, 
as a joke, tendered the nomination to Mr. Gor- 
man. In the face of the big Republican 
majority he accepted the nomination, and 
began a plucky fight. 

There was a political landslide in Michigan 
that year, and he came off victorious with fly- 
ing colors. Now he is sure of staying in Con- 
gress for some time, for his district has been 
changed by a new apportionment into a thor- 
oughly Democratic one. 

His luck remained by him in the Speaker- 
ship contest between Crisp and Mills. He 
tossed up a copper to see for which of the lead- 
ing candidates he would vote. The coin told 
him to vote for Crisp ; he did so, was on the 



58 The Show at Washington. 

winning side and now enjoys excellent com- 
mittee places. 



The study of Congressman Hitt, of Illinois, 
is a Blaine portrait gallery. Upon the walls of 
this room hang over a dozen pictures of the 
late Secretary of State, representing him at all 
ages and in all postures. All of the pictures 
bear Mr. Blaine's autograph, having been pre- 
sented by him, and they form a very valuable 
collection. 

There was probably no member of Congress 
who was as close to Mr. Blaine as was Mr. 
Hitt. They were intimate friends of long 
standing, and spent much time in each other's 
company. There is one object to which Con- 
gressman Hitt is a deadly opponent, and that 
is a Mugwump. 

His definition of a Mugwump is, "A man 
who looks into the glass and thinks he sees 
the government." 



One of the most interesting characters in 
Congress is the senior Senator from Massachu- 
setts. There is hardly a man in the dignified 



Pat and Personal. 59 

body, in which he has so long been a conspicu- 
ous figure, as reminiscent as Senator Hoar of a 
bygone generation. He is essentially a scholar ; 
he boasts a culture and a familiarity with the 
best literature of all kinds which is the envy 
of his associates. His keen and pungent wit 
smacks of the schools, and the biting, rasping 
sarcasm of which he is a master seems 
strangely out of place when associated with 
his innocent, almost babyish face, and the eyes 
that beam good-naturedly behind the . old- 
fashioned spectacles. 

Now that Evarts is gone nobody is left in 
the Senate to cross swords with him in a trial 
of wit. But when the New York humorist was 
in the harness the cloak-room contests between 
the two were rare and racy treats. It was no 
easy thing to pick the winner. On one occa- 
sion, however, and that very near the last, the 
New York statesman came off with flying 
colors. 

Evarts was chairman of the library com- 
mittee and Hoar was one of the minor mem- 
bers. Evarts was lazy and would not call his 
committee together from the beginning to the 
end of the session. The Massachusetts Sena- 



60 The Show at Washington. 

tor happened to have a measure that he was 
particularly anxious to bring up. It had been 
referred to the library committee, and there 
seemed doomed to sleep the sleep of death. 

The chairman was pleaded with in vain. 
He would promise to call the committee to- 
gether, and then conveniently forget all about 
it. Hoar was anxious and annoyed. At last 
one day near the close of the session he hailed 
Evarts in the cloak-room : 

" Whenever you are ready to call a meeting 
of the library committee," he said, " I wish 
you would notify my executors." 

" I shall be most happy to notify your exec- 
utors," retorted Evarts. 



Senator Hoar with his rasping tongue con- 
trives to gain the ill will of some of his asso- 
ciates. One of these was Ingalls, who took 
keen delight in pungent sayings at his col- 
league's expense. When Arthur came into 
the Presidency he stirred the political waters of 
Massachusetts to their depths by his appoint- 
ment of Roland Worthington as collector of 
the port of Boston. 



Pat and Personal. 61 

Senator Hoar and Senator Dawes fought the 
appointment vigorously and when it was finally- 
made Hoar took it as a personal affront. The 
disappointment was so bitter that he threatened 
to resign his place in the Senate if his wishes 
should be disregarded in the further changes 
that were likely to be made. It was just after 
the Conkling-Garfield episode, and there was 
much speculation as to whether he would really 
carry out his threat. The question was under 
discussion in the Senate cloak-room one day 
and somebody commented rather dubiously on 
the probability of a resignation. 

" Hoar resign ? " exclaimed Ingalls. " Never ! 
You don't know him as well as I do. When- 
ever his resentment reaches that pitch he will 
rise in his place and hand in the resignation of 
Senator Dawes." 



Calvin S. Brice's nose is a marvel of nature's 
handiwork — by far the most remarkable thing 
about a rather remarkable man. It is peculiar 
and indescribable in the usual terms of nasal 
nomenclature. It is neither large nor small; 



62 The Show at Washington. 

it follows the lines of no accepted type ; it is 
doubtful whether the realm of creation can 
produce its counterpart. Nobody who has not 
seen it can adequately comprehend it. There 
is something elusive, intangible and phantom- 
like in its texture. The eye clings to it, follows 
it and strives in vain to grapple its details ; but 
there are no details — nothing but an evanes- 
cent, cloud-like whole. It ought to be trans- 
lucent ; the observer catches himself uncon- 
sciously dodging about to get it between him 
and the light ; a ray of sunlight could hardly 
have any other effect than to scatter the vision 
into prismatic hues ; but it eludes even the 
wooing caresses of the sun. It has no begin- 
ning and no end. It springs lightly as the 
foam of the sea from an indistinguishable 
point somewhere near the base of the forehead 
and floats vaguely away into . nothingness. 
There is no line and no point, and nothing de- 
finable except the delicately-penciled nostrils. 
It is as insubstantial and fleeting as a wave of 
light, a marvelous and tantalizing dream. 



Dr. William Everett went home to Boston a 



Pat and Personal. 63 

short time after he had enjoyed his first experi- 
ence of life in Washington. A friend asked 
him how he liked Congress. 

" Oh, it is the funniest place I ever saw," re- 
plied the doctor. " In the House they have 
got things fixed so that you can't get anything 
in, and in the Senate they have arranged things 
so that you can't get anything out." 



ANGLES AND CURVES. 



SPEAKER CRISP is round, not angular. 
His friends in the beginning of his career 
regretted that he did not have more of the 
sharp corners of a crank in his makeup, think- 
ing that it was only the man who had edges to 
be cut who rose rapidly. Since he has been in 
Congress he has grown aggravatingly round. 
Angles make a crank in Congress, roundness a 
statesman. 

Crisp has grown gradually until he has a 
good national reputation. He has calmness 
and clear judgment; he is simple and unos- 
tentatious, never forgetting a face and uniformly 
courteous and polite to all with whom he comes 
in contact. He is " Mr. Crisp " to the pages 
and messengers, and each one he calls by 
name as he passes through the lobbies of the 
Capitol. 

As Gresham has dispelled the mysterious 
atmosphere of awe which for years has hung 
64 



Angles and Curves. 65 

like a veil about the State Department, so has 
Crisp removed the red tape which kept the 
public from the Speaker's room. His hour out 
of the chair is his hour of recreation, and for- 
mality is a stranger to him. After the session 
he throws himself into a big leather chair and 
gives himself up to unrestrained laughter over 
the jokes which the various members come in 
to tell him. Bourke Cockran says he would 
rather retail a poor joke to Crisp than to hear 
a good one himself. The Speaker has a de- 
licious sense of humor, and no point, no matter 
how obscure, is ever lost on him. 

His home or hotel life is even simpler than 
his ex-officio existence. Instead of being the 
social lion, to which rank his position entitles 
him, he prefers the seclusion of his apartments 
at the old Metropolitan and the company of his 
own family. The Speaker is essentially a do- 
mestic man. He declines almost all invita- 
tions, preferring to stay with Mrs. Crisp in old 
room 156 at the Metropolitan. Crisp lives as 
simply as the representative who was sent to 
Congress on an economical platform. He 
keeps no carriages or horses, but uses public 
conveyances altogether. 



66 The Show at Washington, 

His most intimate associates are Catchings, 
of Mississippi, and Montgomery, of Kentucky; 
though he is on the best of terms with nearly 
every member of the House, whether Demo- 
crat, Republican, Populist or Mugwump. He 
never carries his political battles into private 
life. The men who fought him most bitterly 
in his race for Speaker the first time, and who 
claimed that he would cause a split in the 
party, now acknowledge that perhaps he was 
the only man who could have so successfully 
united the factions. 

Crisp brings his Georgia rearing to the Cap- 
ital. He is an early riser, unlike the majority 
of Washingtonians. No matter how late at 
night he is at work he is up every morning by 
seven. His first duty of the day, he says, is to 
read the newspapers. He breakfasts alone at 
eight. One of his maxims is that no man 
should talk before the first meal of the day, as 
no man can be himself until he puts all parts 
of his body in motion. 

He goes to the Capitol early and lets noth- 
ing interfere with his duties as Speaker. He 
never takes but fifteen minutes for lunch, and 
carries the same simplicity of diet into the 



Angles and Curves. 67 

House restaurant that he does into the Metro- 
politan dining-room. 

His only social weakness, if such it may be 
termed, is the theatre, the love of which he in- 
herited from his father, the best years of whose 
life were spent upon the stage. While a national 
character, Crisp is distinctly a Georgian, as 
much so as Carlisle is a Kentuckian. If he 
has any vanity it is for his State, and he takes 
a personal pride in every member of the 
Georgia delegation. 



Vice-President Stevenson is fully as demo- 
cratic in his habits as any of the members of 
the body over which he wields his handleless 
gavel. 

He wanders about the corridors and lobbies 
with as little show of affectation as when he 
was busy swinging the axe at the Post-Office 
Department ; is chummy and chatty with every- 
body, from John Sherman down to the pages, 
and, altogether, takes things as easily as though 
there were never a possibility of his brandish- 
ing the whip from the other end of the Avenue. 

The Vice-President's room is the most hand- 



68 The Show at Washington. 

somely furnished apartment in the Capitol. 
Everything in it is simple and elegant, but 
Stevenson makes it as comfortable and avail- 
able as the smoking-room in his own house. 
The door is always open, and when he is not 
presiding over the Senate he can generally be 
found there, with his feet perched high on the 
mahogany table and his lips encircling a cigar. 
Mr. Stevenson never rides in a carriage of 
his own, but goes to the Capitol and returns 
from it generally on foot. His greatest dissi- 
pation is an occasional ride in one of the slow- 
moving, public herdic coaches that crawl up 
and down the Avenue for the benefit of ladies 
with bundles. He always wears a silk hat, but 
it is at least a year old, and is never brushed. 



In one way there is no more interesting char- 
acter in the Senate than the president pro-tem., 
old Isham Harris, of Tennessee. Nobody 
knows how old he is, but he was a member of 
Congress way back in '49, and he has a place 
in history as the war Governor of his State. He 
sits in the front row of the Democratic side, in 
the seat corresponding to that formerly occu- 



Angles and Curves. 69 

pied by Senator Edmunds among the Republi- 
cans, and he holds something the same rela- 
tion to his own party that Edmunds did to his 
for many years. He has a rasping voice and 
an aggravating aggressiveness of tone, and 
takes a keen delight, as Edmunds did, in lash- 
ing his party associates. Harris looks like a 
weasel ; his head is bald, with the exception of 
a funny fringe of white hair, which stands out 
in a circle like a brush, and which he trains 
into a horizontal position by continually pull- 
ing at it with his fingers. Harris is the John 
Randolph of the Senate, a picturesque figure, 
bold in his methods, heartless in his thrusts, 
and, above all, independent as air. 



Call, of Florida, can empty both the floor 
and the galleries of the Senate more quickly 
than any other member of that body. He is 
a great man among the Florida crackers, and 
they have been sending him to the Senate so 
persistently that his period of service is longer 
than that of almost any of his fellows. But in 
Washington Call is taken as a Senatorial joke. 



yo The Show at Washington. • 

Senator Manderson, of Nebraska, has won 
so brilliant a reputation in politics that his mili- 
tary record has been almost overshadowed by- 
it ; but he is a life-long sufferer from wounds 
received in the war, and is racked daily by phy- 
sical pains that would crush a less indomitable 
spirit. Manderson was a young lawyer in Ohio 
when the war broke out, and he was one of the 
most dashing and brilliant soldiers that the 
Buckeye, State contributed to the conflict. He 
was idolized by his men, and he could lead 
them into the most desperate situations. 

His wound is in the back, and he is not 
ashamed to acknowledge it. He received it in 
the battle of Lovejoy's station. His men were 
facing a tremendous fire, which was sweeping 
through their ranks, and the youthful com- 
mander saw them break and bend. Quick as 
a flash he rushed in front of the line between 
the enemy and his men, and turning his back 
to the foe he waved his sword in the air, cheer- 
ing and shouting to his men to re-form their 
lines and follow him. 

The company responded with enthusiasm 
and renewed the charge, but a Rebel bullet 



Angles and Curves. 71 

had pierced the spine of their commander and 
carried him to the ground. 



Senator Perkins, of California, has become 
popular in his State through the simple trick of 
asking every second or third man he meets for 
the time of day, and setting his watch accord- 
ingly on the spot. The compliment thus paid 
to the timepiece of his acquaintances is always 
amply returned. 



You can't help liking "Nevada" Jones. It 
is refreshing to find some one in public office in 
Washington who actually believes in something 
and believes in it with his whole heart and soul. 
Besides there are more pith and color and orig- 
inal suggestion in one of the silver Senator's 
chance conversations than there are in any 
half dozen average Congressional speeches 
boiled down. 

Jones holds the gold monometallists in great 
contempt. He defines them in the same way 
that "Joe" Choate defined the Mugwumps, as 
"persons educated beyond their intellect." 

He was talking with Senator Edmunds one 
6 



? 2 The Shoii) at Washington. 

day and was exploiting his theories with his 
usual enthusiasm, when the icy Vermonter in- 
terrupted him with a sneering query : 

" Whom are you going to get to take your 
money after you issue it?" 

The hot-blooded Welshman bridled up. ' ' You 
would take it for one," he responded with equal 
disdain ; " or else you would have to tramp for 
a living." 

The most important individual in the Senate 
unquestionably is Vilas, of Wisconsin. There 
is nothing about which he does not appear to 
know more than anybody else. He has con- 
stituted himself the special guardian of the 
Cleveland administration, and when Hoar, 
Sherman or Frye is pouring hot shot into 
White House policies, Vilas leans back pomp- 
ously in his chair, with his hands crossed com- 
placently over his waistband and a look of 
calm superiority on his face, which tells more 
plainly than any words of his could tell that if 
other people knew as much about the inside 
facts of the case as he nobody would listen to 
such absurd speeches for a minute. 

Every few minutes Vilas indulges in a con- 



Angles and Curves. 73 

stitutional. He walks around the rear of the 
Senate chamber with his hips thrown out and 
his head back, very much as if he were entered 
for a cake walk and sure to win the cake. 



McCreary, of Kentucky, is a perpetual smiler. 
His face has all the unctuousness and blandness 
of the heathen Chinee, and his voice possesses 
the reassuring softness of a father confessor. 
His whole presence breathes of tolerance, 
affable condescension and patronizing imper- 
turbability. 

You always feel that whatever happens 
McCreary knew all about it in advance, and 
that the only reason that he refrains from re- 
vealing the secrets of the future is that he 
doesn't think it worth while to make the revela- 
tion. 

McCreary is an ideal chairman of the Foreign 
Affairs Committee. He is never flurried and 
never hurried, and never by any chance sur- 
prised into doing anything dramatic or sensa- 
tional. 

His colleagues in the House call him " Bar- 



74 The Show at Washington. 

rundia " because of the part he took when that 
international incident was up in Congress. 



Edward Murphy, of New York, is the most 
popular Senator on the Democratic side. His 
even temper, uniform courtesy and unassum- 
ing gentleness of manner have won for him a 
warm place in the affections of his fellow- 
solons. 



Chandler, of New Hampshire, is, next to 
Hoar, the most exasperating debater the 
Democrats encounter in the Senate. They 
never know exactly where he is going to strike, 
and he has such a delightfully sarcastic and 
semi-humorous way of treating subjects, which 
are to the Democratic mind sacred, that they 
are never in precisely the mood to answer him. 

He has a way, too, of springing uncomfort- 
able questions on the Senate, which he ap- 
proaches with an air of innocence that dis- 
arms complaint. 



McMillin and Springer are the two most vocif- 
erous speakers in the House. For that reason 



Angles and Curves. 75 

they are Tom Reed's pet aversions. Richard- 
son, of Tennessee, is a voluminous orator, but 
Reed doesn't object especially to him. " Rich- 
ardson talks a good deal," says the ex-Speaker, 
"but he is a good-natured fellow, and what he 
says doesn't make the slightest difference one 
way or the other. Springer and McMillin are 
different. Neither of them ever says a word 
without subtracting from the sum of human 
knowledge." 



As rigid as New England virtue is Senator 
Redfield Proctor, of Vermont. He has re- 
pressed his emotions until his face seems 
wooden, but when you look straight into his 
eyes and see the force in their cold depths, you 
know that he is a man who can be very angry 
if he cannot be gay. Tall and thin, with care- 
fully brushed coat and ministerial black neck- 
tie, with beard well trimmed and a far-away 
look in his eye, he does not impress one as a 
man likely to be slapped on the back and in- 
vited to take a drink. 



Alien, of Nebraska, will never outlive the 
reputation he gained as a long-distance orator 



76 The Show at Washington. 

in the famous special silver session of Con- 
gress. He is to-day pointed out frequently from 
the galleries, while Senators who have served 
years to his months, and who have accom- 
plished a great deal in the way of statesman- 
ship, promenade the floor without attracting 
any attention whatever. 

His fifteen hours' speech stamped him as a 
man who can think with his tongue. There is 
no member of the Senate who is better fitted 
by nature for a physical test of this kind than 
Allen. He is a giant in stature and in strength. 
He would be a model for a centre rush on a 
college football team. He is tall and he is 
stocky. His face is smooth, with a large jaw 
bone and a pair of flashing eyes that make him 
look like an Indian after a visit to a hair-cut- 
ting establishment. 

He is a straightforward talker, and uses no 
flowers of speech and no attempts at rhetoric. 
Now, whenever he gets up to make a speech 
the Senators look at their note-books and cal- 
endars and figure up the time of their engage- 
ments for the next few days before they decide 
whether they can remain and listen to him. 



Angles and Curves. yy 

Henry Cabot Lodge looks like a thorough- 
bred, with his erect and well-developed form, 
his trim legs, molded like those of an athlete, 
and his self-possessed and graceful carriage. 
He is always wandering around among his as- 
sociates in the Senate, confining himself to 
neither side. He and Aldrich are the news- 
gatherers of the Senate. They are better ac- 
quainted than any others with what is going 
on or likely to happen. 

The Massachusetts Senator is the literary 
member of the Senate. Not a month passes 
without something from his pen in a syndicate 
or a magazine, and in addition to all this he 
has written two books since he has been in 
Congress. His mind works with the regularity 
of a clock. As soon as he has determined to 
prepare a speech or write an article he sets to 
work on it at once. After a day or two of cogi- 
tation he will write or dictate the article at a 
stretch, frequently sitting down to his desk in 
evening dress, after returning from a dinner or 
a reception, and writing by himself till long 
after midnight. His capacity for mental labor 
is inexhaustible. 



yS The Show at Washington. 

John Sherman grows to look more and more 
like his military brother, the late William Te- 
cumseh, every year. The lines in the strong 
face have grown harder, the impressive coun- 
tenance has become more grizzled, and the 
closely-cropped beard has developed a harsh 
and military preciseness. 

Sherman is, in many respects, the most strik- 
ing figure in the Senate. He is certainly the 
Senator most widely known, both at home and 
abroad, and he is the one man to whom the 
visitor turns without a mental inquiry as to 
what he is or what he has done. He is a con- 
stant attendant on the floor. His place, in 
the King Row, is the most conspicuous on the 
Republican side, and his gaunt but wiry figure, 
full of impressiveness and a certain grace of 
strength, easily attracts the eye. His dress is 
always the same — an old-fashioned black frock 
coat, a low-cut vest, displaying an expanse of 
shirt front, and a black tie encircling his high 
collar in a bow. He usually leans far back in 
his chair, with one arm thrown carelessly over 
the back, and rarely indulges in conversation 
with anybody, although Hoar and Manderson 
sit on either side. 



Angles and Curves. 79 

Sherman is not popular in the Senate. He 
is too self-centred, and some think too selfish ; 
but there is no Senator for whom his colleagues 
have such unbounded respect. 



AT THE TABLE AND AT THE BAR. 



THE most scientific drinker in the Senate is 
"Joe " Blackburn. The Kentuckian can 
flavor a fine brand of whiskey through several 
thicknesses of wall, and it is a long time since 
any of his colleagues have attempted to smug- 
gle a choice variety into the Capitol without 
giving Blackburn a chance to sample it. 

The last man who tried to do it was Coke, 
of Texas, who is a little " close " by nature. 
Coke has a way of sending down to Kentucky 
for his whiskey. He knows just where to go 
for his favorite brand, and every little while he 
receives an installment of five two-gallon jugs 
of "Old Jordan." He fills a half-pint flask 
every morning and takes it up to the Senate. 

At first he used to deposit it for safe keeping 
on the top shelf in the cloak-room, whither he 
would occasionally invite a colleague to come 
and share it, on the pledge not to reveal its 
whereabouts. He was especially careful to 
So 



At the Table and at the Bar. 81 

keep it concealed from Blackburn, but it was 
not many days before the Kentuckian began 
to scent the unmistakable odor, and, reaching 
his hand to the shelf, he came across the flask. 
It took only a day or two for Coke to dis- 
cover, from the appearance of the flask, that 
Blackburn had found out his hiding-place, and 
he quietly removed his treasure and deposited 
it in his pocket, where he still continues to 
carry it out of harm's way. 



Immediately after one of the late Senator 
Beck's speeches an admirer sent him a barrel 
of Bourbon. Of course, the first thing he did 
was to send for "Joe " Blackburn to help drink 
it up. The invitation was promptly accepted. 
As soon as Blackburn had taken the first sip 
of the whiskey he smacked his lips, and, after 
taking another, said, as much to himself as to 
Beck: "Yes, there is certainly iron in the 
barrel." 

"What is that you say, 'Joe'?" asked the 
senior Senator. 

" I said there was iron in that barrel." 

Beck poured out a glass, and, after tasting 



82 The Show at Washington. 

it, shook his head wisely and said : " No, there 
is no iron in that barrel, but there is leather." 

A hot dispute followed, and finally a heavy 
wager was made, to be decided when the barrel 
should be empty. This happened in about 
two months, but the bet was declared off as 
both were right. 

When the head of the barrel was knocked 
in a carpet tack with a leather head was found 
in the bottom. 



Blackburn says that the Indians have the 
most extraordinary taste for whiskey of any 
class of men he ever came in contact with. 
He tells this story to prove it : 

He was travelling alone through Indian 
Territory in a not very thickly populated sec- 
tion, and, although he started with a generous 
quantity of liquor, the supply, with the excep- 
tion of a single quart flask, became exhausted. 
While in this condition he met a Cherokee 
Indian, a very intelligent fellow, who asked 
him to extend the usual courtesies to a fellow- 
traveller. 

The courtesies were promptly extended, and, 
as the brand was the finest Kentucky, the Sen- 



At the Table and at the Bar. 83 

ator was hardly surprised when the Indian, who 
was mounted on a beautiful horse, eagerly 
offered him five dollars for the remainder of 
his bottle. The offer was declined, whereupon 
the Indian offered his saddle, his bridle, and 
finally his horse ; but all without avail. 

"Did you ever hear of a thirst like that?" 
the Senator inquired of the friend to whom he 
told the story. 

"Why didn't you take the offer, Joe?" was 
asked. 

"Great heavens, man!" exclaimed Black- 
burn, "it was the last bottle I had on earth !" 



A favorite Texas tipple is what is known as 
the "long toddy," consisting of two-thirds 
water and one-third whiskey, with a plentiful 
supply of sugar. This is Coke's preference, 
and it is the mixture that the Texas Congress- 
men usually indulge in. 



Roger Q. Mills has a fondness for beer. 
And this appetite attacks him at unexpected 
and at sometimes inconvenient moments. He 



84 The Show at Washington. 

was sitting up toiling with a tariff argument 
one summer night, and after midnight his 
longing for beer suddenly came upon him. 

Clapping his broad-brimmed hat on his head 
he swung out into the street without a thought 
of the lateness of the hour, and rushing up to 
the first door which looked inviting he was as- 
tonished to find it locked. He sprang back in 
surprise, and tried three or four others with 
the same result. Just then he spied a police- 
man. 

"My friend," he exclaimed, "isn't there a 
place in this town where a man can get a glass 
of beer ?" 

" Well, everything is shut up at this time of 
the night," replied the policeman, with a grin ; 
"but I guess if you are smart you can get it." 

The Senator continued his search, and was 
about giving up when he ran across a ragged 
individual who displayed a tell-tale nose. 

"You are the fellow I want," thought the 
shrewd Texan, and within two minutes after he 
had hailed the ruddy-nosed gentleman he had 
discovered a place to satisfy his thirst and that 
of his new-found friend. 



At the Table and at the Bar. 85 

The New York and New England Senators 
are among the most abstemious. Gallinger 
maintains an elegant coolness in summer by- 
sipping iced coffee. On exceptionally hot days 
he seems to find additional relief in tilting his 
chair back and putting his feet on the table. 
"Joe" Hawley and Piatt, of Connecticut, try 
to make each other happy by gazing into each 
other's eyes over glasses of soda lemonade. 
Hoar relies for stimulants on tea and Aldrich 
frequently joins Allison in a bowl of bread and 
milk. 

Wolcott, of Colorado, and Hale, of Maine, 
possess two of the most delicate palates in the 
Senate, and neither of them forgets the admo- 
nition of the old Irish gentlewoman who in- 
structed her son that it was as bad form to 
drink wine before six o'clock as it was to 
appear in a dress suit. 



Senator Vest's taste runs to apollinaris, and 
none of his fellow-Senators are apt to offer the 
little Missourian anything more sparkling. It 
wasn't so with him ten years ago, but he under- 
stands himself better now. 



86 The Show at Washington. 

Another Senator whose tastes run apollinaris- 
ward is Frye, and still another is Gorman. 
Gorman mixes his apollinaris with lemonade, 
but never with anything more exhilarating, 
unless, as a measure of courtesy, he tinges a 
glass with the faintest hue of whiskey. 



Hill sips a glass of plain Potomac water with 
a simple lunch, all by himself as a rule, at a 
little round table in the corner of an inner 
room. Morrill loves a bowl of bread and milk, 
and so does Proctor ; and another Senator who 
rarely squanders more than fifteen cents on his 
midday lunch is the many-times millionaire, 
Mitchell, of Wisconsin. 

He can be seen in the restaurant on days 
when his wife is giving a magnificent luncheon, 
costing hundreds of dollars, with a piece of 
apple pie before him and a glass of milk at his 
side. He is as simple in his tastes as Peffer, 
who tucks his goat-like beard under a napkin 
as he solemnly imbibes his coffee. 



Over in the House there are comparatively 
few who indulge in intoxicants to any extent. 



At the Table and at the Bar. 87 

Tom Reed saunters over to the Senate daily 
and keeps cool and good-natured on soda 
lemonade with his friend Lodge. Probably 
these two men dine out more frequently than 
any other men in Congress. But it is a rare 
thing for either of them to take wine. 



" Tim " Campbell, of New York, probably 
has the most picturesque taste in liquors of 
anybody in either branch. It is rather singular 
that almost without exception the professional 
humorists of the House are either total ab- 
stainers or very nearly so. 

"Private" John Allen fills in the moments, 
when he is not telling stories, by imbibing 
harmless seltzer. Asher Caruth, in spite of 
being about the most popular man in Ken- 
tucky, looks on whiskey as poison, and keeps 
his spirits high with ginger ale. 



"Silver Dollar" Bland rises to the height 
of a bottle of beer about once a week. Breckin- 
ridge, the Kentucky silver tongue, is practically 
a total abstainer, and the only thing he takes 



88 The Show at Washington. 

from a cup when speaking is the genuine arti- 
cle of cold coffee. 

Bryan is another apollinaris man. His father 
was a preacher and a judge out in Illinois who 
used to open court with prayer, and the youth- 
ful Congressman takes after him. 



Bynum keeps himself in good condition with 
an occasional toddy or beer, and Catchings 
does the same. Crisp comes from a prohibi- 
tion district. He never has anything sent up 
to the Speaker's room except iced tea. McMillin 
is nearly as abstemious, and Springer has a 
weakness for lemonade. 

But the most exemplary delegation in Con- 
gress since Milliken took the pledge is that 
from Maine. Dingley is the model of the 
House. 

Gen. "Joe" Wheeler, of Alabama, learned 
a trick at West Point which has always clung 
to him. He rarely drinks even as much as a 
glass of apollinaris during the day, but every 
night just before he goes to bed he opens a 
bottle of beer, stirs in a little salt as he pours 
it out and then sleeps like a top. 



At the Table and at the Bar. 89 

The Senate restaurant is an interesting spot, 
although very quiet. The monotony of the 
lunch hour is now and then broken by a swarthy 
waiter yelling at the top of his voice, " One 
twenty- five-cent cigar for Senator Lodge and 
two five-cent cigars for Senator Berry, of Ar- 
kansas." The Senators dine in an exclusive 
and hearty fashion. Their idiosyncrasies in 
eating are as marked as their idiosyncrasies of 
debate. 



Palmer, of Illinois, a bluff, hearty, gray- 
headed man of nearly seventy years, is an 
advocate of the beef-steak. There is a huski- 
ness in his throat which speaks of rich and 
dripping gravies. A French fried potato man, 
a sound diner and a hearty drinker, for Palmer 
is a man of the people. 



A different man in the matter of feeding, an 
educated man as the restaurant keeper esteems 
him, a man with the French terms of the menu 
on the tip of his tongue, is Senator Manderson, 
of Nebraska. He is as select in his choice of 
the morsels which he swallows as the bird of 



9° The Show at Washington. 

paradise, which is supposed to live upon the 
dew that rests in the cup of the South Ameri- 
can flower. 

No whiskey for Mr. Manderson, nor any- 
thing so crude as brandy, but the heaviest and 
mellowest of French wines are his delight. 
Chablis, the products of the rich slopes of Bur- 
gundy, and Chateau Yquem are all in his rep- 
ertoire. 

A very delicate eater is Manderson, a man 
who insists upon prompt attendance, a man 
upon the best terms with all the waiters in the 
restaurant. 



The most liberal Senator to tip is Wolcott. 
He always gives the waiter at least fifty cents 
and sometimes a dollar. Hill and Murphy are 
free with their money in this way also, as is 
Mitchell, of Oregon. 

Senator Lodge has a weakness for broiled 
ham, and usually he takes poached eggs with 
it. McMillan, of Michigan, would like to have 
reed birds all the year round, while Senator 
Cameron lives on fish. 



At the Table and at the Bar. 91 



There are other Senators who are interesting 
eaters— Hill, a devotee at the shrine of the 
salad ; White, of Louisiana, who received his 
gastronomic education in the dim and delight- 
ful semi-submerged cafes of New Orleans; 
White, of California, a believer in the virtue of 
the pompano, to be caught in the sunny south- 
ern bays of his State, and a considerable advo- 
cate of the Olympian oyster, a shell fish raked 
from the sandy shallows which stretch to the 
westward of the little city of Olympia, nestling 
upon the shores of Puget sound; Pasco, a 
sheep's-head and broiled bacon man ; Davis, 
of Minnesota, who believes that pork is the 
meat of the gods, and insists upon the sweet 
potato as an eternal condiment; Frye, of 
Maine, a fish eater and water drinker ; Ran- 
som, of North Carolina, who eschews both fish 
and water ; and, last of all, George, of Missis- 
sippi, who so far as the records of the Senate 
restaurant show, never eats at all. 



NINE BLACK BUNDLES OF LAW. 



CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER is as democratic 
in his habits as any briefless police court 
lawyer in Washington. He usually walks to 
the Capitol, or else rides contentedly in a street 
car ; and it is a common thing to see him sit- 
ting in one corner of an F street horse car in 
the morning on his way to the Supreme Court 
room, carrying a big pile of law books in his 
lap, while his colored messenger sits by his 
side with another lapful of legal volumes. 

When he travels he lugs his own satchel, 
which is sometimes nearly half as bulky as he, 
and there are comparatively few people who 
recognize in the dapper little fellow the Chief 
Justice of the United States. It is really sur- 
prising to observe how unfamiliar the Chief 
Justice's features are, even to some of the most 
conspicuous public men in Washington. He 
is something of a recluse, and many of the 
92 



Nine Black Bundles of Law. 93 

ablest and most widely celebrated men in Con- 
gress have never made his acquaintance. 



" Bob " Ingersoll was arguing a case once 
before the Supreme Court. In the midst of 
his great and eloquent effort Mr. Justice Har- 
lan arose, a page pulled back his chair, and 
the justice, with much dignity, it must be said, 
walked behind the scenes. There he obtained 
a glass of milk and a huge railroad restaurant 
ham sandwich. Industriously, and with much 
dignity, of course, Mr. Justice Harlan laid vig- 
orous siege to the ham sandwich. Between 
the mouthfuls he would peer around the corner 
of the protecting screen to keep track of Inger- 
soll' s talk. 

In the midst of one of these movements 
Col. Ingersoll caught sight of the justice's na- 
turally well-developed cheeks bulging out with 
several bunches of sandwich. The situation 
was irresistibly funny. 

Ingersoll forgot the point he was endeavor- 
ing to make, and stopped the argument with a 
well-developed snicker. It was several seconds 
before the colonel recovered himself sufficiently 



94 The Show at Washington. 

to proceed, and in the meantime Mr. Justice 
Harlan had wiped his extensive cheeks and 
returned to his seat, — with great dignity, of 
course. 

When George F. Edmunds is arguing a case 
before the Supreme Court the venerable court- 
room is transformed into a lively and interest- 
ing place. 

The vigorous old Vermonter sits within the 
bar with his finger tips pressed meditatively 
together and his keen eyes glancing out pierc- 
ingly from beneath his shaggy brows, looking 
for all the world as he used to look from his 
coign of vantage in the front row of the Senate. 

At intervals, without raising his head or 
changing his expression, he will interject into 
the opposing counsel's argument a startling re- 
mark, uttered in his clear, incisive tone, usually 
in the form of a correction or a flat contradic- 
tion. This sort of thing generally goes on for 
some time, after the manner of his former in- 
terruptions in the Senate, before the Chief Jus- 
tice summons courage to call attention to the 
violation of the etiquette of the court. And 
when Justice Fuller finally does so in his funny, 



Nine Black Bundles of Law. 95 

high-pitched voice, Edmunds looks up at him 
ferociously, and relapses into moody contem- 
plation. 

Justice Brown is the literary light of the 
bench. His mastery of the English tongue 
is complete, and many a well-known author 
might learn language at his feet. He is one 
of the best after-dinner speakers in Washing- 
ton, is president of the University Club, and 
around its burning logs can tell a story with the 
best. 



The giant of the be.nch is Gray. Named for 
Horace, the poet, he carries in his shoes any- 
where between three and four hundred pounds, 
and has the brow of a Goldsmith and the face 
of a Daniel O'Connell. 

Harlan is the only rival in size whom Justice 
Gray has upon the bench. His other names 
are John Marshall, and he was named for the 
great Chief Justice. He looks like a war chief, 
and his black gown hangs in more awkward 
folds than that of any of his colleagues. He 
was a judge when he was only twenty-five 
years old, and even then made a reputation 



g6 The Show at Washington. 

throughout his Kentucky county for the way in 
which he decided cases. 



Justice Field has had a more adventurous 
career than any other member of the court. 
He was a *49er, and was one of the bravest 
and most venturesome of the seekers after gold. 
Almost his first experience, after arriving on 
the Pacific coast, was to become a member of 
the vigilance committee organized to put down 
lawlessness. The mining camp of Marysville 
was about as dangerous a place as there was 
along the coast, and Field, who had a legal 
education, was chosen by the orderly part of 
the community to administer the laws in the 
capacity of Alcalde of the city. 

Field, instead of treating the position as that 
of a justice of the peace,* to which it was really 
equivalent, boldly took the administration of 
affairs into his own hand, ruled the community 
with a high hand, punishing crime and enforc- 
ing police regulations, until he was relieved by 
officers selected under the new State Constitu- 
tion. He acted as second in two duels, and for 



Nine Black Bundles of Law. 97 

a month his life was in peril every hour of the 
day. 

Justice Field has a relative on the court. 
Justice Brewer is his nephew. Brewer was 
born away off in Asia Minor in the very year 
that his uncle Field was receiving a ribbon-tied 
sheepskin at Williams College. He is the 
youngest person upon the bench, and is re- 
garded as the coming legal light. His father 
was a missionary to Turkey, and Brewer him- 
self gave the Yale yell in New Haven for the 
four years ending in '56. He is now a smooth- 
shaven individual, but tradition says that when 
he first came to Washington from Kansas he 
had a beard, and a handsome one. 



Justice Gray was for years the bachelor of 
the bench. He had maintained a state of single 
blessedness so long that his friends had come 
to regard his case as incorrigible. After he had 
been in Washington a year or two he bethought 
himself to build a house. It was a costly 
structure, and he planned it all himself. But 
when he came to move in, it was discovered 



98 The Show at Washington. 

that the establishment did not boast a closet 
from garret to cellar. The funny thing about 
it was that although his house was built for a 
bachelor's castle, the justice brought a wife to 
preside over it before he had lived in it a year. 



Justice Shiras owns the only pair of whiskers 
upon the bench. He is slight and wiry, and in 
his day was an athlete of no mean reputation. 
He is a great football crank even now, and 
something of a literary light as well, having 
been an author before he became a judge. He 
sits with clenched teeth when listening to coun- 
sel from the bench. 



It is a tradition of the Supreme Court that 
the justices shall not meddle in party politics, 
and in a general way this tradition is respected. 
There are few of the justices, however, who do 
not betray an occasional weakness for dabbling 
in politics in a small way. It is not an excep- 
tional thing for a politician who has been fore- 



Nine Black Bundles of Law. 99 

ing a henchman for an office which requires 
legal training to find his progress suddenly and 
mysteriously barred. If he were to look into 
the thing the chances are that he would dis- 
cover that one of the Supreme Court justices 
had interposed a suggestion to the appointing 
officer just at a critical time. 

The thing is not done in a vulgar way. A 
timely word dropped into a Cabinet officer's ear 
at a swell dinner or a reception is far more 
effective than a crude and vulgar appeal for 
political favor. It takes tact and patience, 
however, and in some instances any amount of 
social prestige, to bring a justice's influence to 
bear in any particular case. 



Justice Gray is a striking figure, with his 
massive form and large bald head, and a man 
likely to have few doubles. But there is a per- 
son in the city, in a kind of official life, too, 
who bears a wonderful resemblance to him. 
This is the man who was coachman to Mr. 
Morton during the time he was Vice-President. 
In figure, face and head he bears a sufficiently 



The Show at Washington. 



close resemblance to the Bay State jurist to 
prove embarrassing to the latter at times. 



Attorney-General Olney tells this story on 
Justice Gray. Mr. Gray prefers riding to walk- 
ing, and a carriage to a street car. When he 
first held court in Boston he asked the United 
States marshal to provide him with a carriage 
to transport him from his hotel to the court and 
back to the hotel at the end of the day's ses- 
sion. The marshal was commendably prompt 
and cheerful in complying with the wishes of 
the distinguished jurist. From Boston Judge 
Gray went to Providence to hold court. He 
asked the United States marshal there to pro- 
vide him with a carriage to carry him back and 
forth. The marshal said he could not do so 
without paying for the vehicle out of his own 
pocket. 

"Why, how's that?" exclaimed the aston- 
ished judge. 

"The department would not. allow the ac- 
count, and I'd have to pay it," explained the 
marshal. 

" But the marshal at Boston furnished me 



Nine Black Bundles of Law. 101 

with a carriage and had no trouble with his 
account," expostulated Judge Gray. 

" I don't see how he did it," protested the 
Providence marshal. " I know that if I tried 
it, that item in my accounts would be disal- 
lowed and I would have to stand it." 

" Very well," said Judge Gray. " Of course, 
I don't want you to pay for my carriage ;" and 
he paid for it himself, thus closing the incident 
so far as he was concerned. 

Not so with the Providence marshal. He 
wrote to the Boston marshal and asked him 
how he managed to have his charge for a car- 
riage for Judge Gray's use between the hotel 
and the court-room allowed by the department. 

" Easy enough," wrote the Boston officer in 
reply. " It's plain," he continued, " that you've 
been marshal for but a short time. I provided 
Judge Gray with a carriage and my accounts 
went through the department without any 
trouble. You see I put the item of the judge's 
carriage under the head of ' care and transpor- 
tation of prisoners.' " 



SMOKE TALKS. 



SENATOR BATE, of Tennessee, never 
smokes a cigar, « He is fond of tobacco, 
however, and always has a piece of a cigar in 
his mouth, but he never lights it. This habit 
he has followed out for more than a quarter of 
a century. It is the result of superstition. 

He was a general in the war, and at that 
time was an inveterate smoker. One afternoon 
he and his brother were riding about a battle 
field among the mountains of Tennessee, while 
a kind of semi-battle was in progress. Always 
cool in action, Bate's cigar-case was as much a 
part of his makeup as his horse and saddle. 

As the two rode along Senator (then General) 
Bate reached for his breast pocket and took out 
a cigar. He bit off the end with customary 
nicety, scratched a match on the back of his 
saddle, and settled down in his stirrups to 
enjoy himself. 

There was a shock in the air, the nameless, 
1 02 



Smoke Talks. 103 



indefinable stir produced by the close passage 
of a shell or round shot, and the match within 
two inches of the end of the weed went out. 
Shrugging his shoulders and preparing to get 
another light, he glanced about him. 

His brother, who had been sitting on his 
horse a little to the left and in the rear, was a 
corpse. The ball had struck him in the chest 
and all that Bate saw was a mixed mass of 
dead flesh ten feet behind. The horse stood 
unmoved. The man who was alive looked at 
the unlighted match between his fingers. Then 
he rode away to the rear for an ambulance. 
When the exciting scene was all over Bate 
found that his unlighted cigar was still between 
his lips, where he was slowly chewing it to bits. 

From that day to this he has never known 
what it was to smoke. He says that if he 
should light a cigar he would see. the whole sad 
scene before him, and perhaps he regards the 
lighting of a cigar as a desecration of his 
brother's memory. But day after day he chews 
on a dry cigar. 

Denson, of Alabama, explains, humorously, 
how they worked Uncle Sam at an election in 

8 



104 The Show at Washington. 

his district. The Democrats had things pretty- 
well in hand, but when election day came 
around they were somewhat annoyed to dis- 
cover that a company of United States infantry 
had appeared on the scene, with a young lieu- 
tenant in command. 

Denson perceived that it would take a little 
diplomacy to properly handle the federal au- 
thority, so he decided to attend to the matter 
in person. 

He went to the lieutenant, and, after extend- 
ing the usual liquid courtesies, he asked him 
whether he was a believer in Caucasian domi- 
nation. The officer admitted that he was. 

"Then I want to tell you," said Denson, 
"that your presence here with soldiers may 
mean nigger domination in this district." 

The young man said he was sorry to hear 
that, and after thinking it over for a minute he 
asked the candidate what road the colored 
population usually came in by to reach the 
polls. Denson told him. 

" I think we will have a fair election," said 
the officer, and with further courtesies Denson 
went away. 

When the colored voters arrived at a con- 



Smoke Talks. 105 



venient point on the outskirts of the town they 
found a couple of sergeants on guard, each 
with a keg of whiskey in his keeping and a tin 
dipper. The heart of every voter was made 
ijlad with a drink and a Democratic ballot was 
handed him, with the assurance that if he came 
back the same way at night, with two witnesses 
to the fact that he had voted that ticket, he 
should be given a second drink. 

The scheme worked to a charm. There was 
no distinction of color in the vote of that pre- 
cinct, and Denson was triumphantly elected. 



General. Cogswell, of Massachusetts, is one 
of the heaviest members of the House. He 
is also one of the shrewdest statesmen in Wash- 
ington, and he seldom has to take an upper 
berth in a sleeping car. 

When once he discovered that he had drawn 
an upper berth in the Pullman lottery he waited 
until a few minutes of the time of leaving be- 
fore boarding the train. When everybody 
seemed to be within hearing distance the Gen- 
eral called out to the porter and demanded to 



Io6 The Show at Washington. 

know whether the car was new and in good 
repair. 

"The reason I want to know," he said, in a 
loud voice, " is because I had a rough expe- 
rience last night and night before on one of 
your cars. They put me in an upper berth, 
and both times it gave way in the middle of 
the night and let me down on the man under- 
neath. I've got an upper berth this trip and I 
don't care to have the thing happen again. 
You see I'm a little heavier than the ordinary 
run and it's no joke." 

The other passengers began to prick up their 
ears and looked around. A half-dozen of them 
asked the fat gentleman what the number of 
his berth might be, and on his announcing it 
the timid occupant of the berth underneath 
proposed, with a great show of courtesy, that it 
would be a good thing to swap, and the ex- 
change was made with glee on both sides. 



Ike Hill, the Democratic whip in the House, 
is an expert in the dead languages. During a 
lively scrap on the floor one day it looked for 
a while as if the sefgeant-at-arms would be 



Smoke Talks. 107 



called on to shake his mace in the faces of ob- 
streperous members. Hill was very much ex- 
cited. 

" If I had this thing in charge," he exclaimed, 
" I'd pitch them out of the window, nolens 
volens" 

"What does that mean, Ike," said Cooper, 
of Indiana, who never saw a Latin book in his 
life. 

"Nolens volens" exclaimed the Ohio linguist, 
with a look of great contempt, " means head 
over heels." 

" That is excellent ; I must remember that," 
said Cooper ; and he went away entirely satis- 
fied. 



Frye and Blackburn are two of the greatest 
chums in the Senate. The down-East radical 
and the Kentucky fire-eater have a number of 
manly qualities in common, and each has a 
touch of humor in spite of a prevailing serious- 
ness of character. 

Frye delights to mimic the dialect and the 
mannerisms of his Southern friend. He de- 
clares that he overheard a conversation between 



108 The Show at Washington. 

the Kentuckian and a visiting stranger in the 
Senate lobby. The stranger asked Blackburn 
politely whether Senator Hoar was in the 
chamber. The Kentucky Senator replied, with 
equal courtesy and a profound bow : 

" Senator Ho' is not on de no'. He went out 
of dat do' at half-past fo'." 



Congressman McCreary tells a story of an 
experience of his in Kentucky a good many 
years ago. There was a great celebration in 
one of the towns in his district over the pre- 
sentation to the town of a fountain. The Con- 
gressman happened to be in the place, and, of 
course, he was invited up on the platform when 
the speech-making began. 

He hardly knew what the excitement was all 
about, and had no idea of figuring in the per- 
formance, but after the exercises were well 
under way the chairman leaned over and 
whispered that the distinguished citizen who 
had been booked to make the speech of ac- 
ceptance on the part of the town had been 
taken suddenly down with a bad case of stage 



Smoke Talks. 109 



fright, and that there was no way out of it ex- 
cept for the Congressman to take his place. 

McCreary hadn't been paying any attention 
to what was going on, but he is equal to most 
occasions and he promptly replied that he 
would undertake the job if they would let him 
manage it in his own way. 

The speech of presentation was almost com- 
pleted, and McCreary hustled a small boy down 
to the leader of the band with a tip to start up 
playing just as soon as he should rise to make 
the response. 

The band answered expectations fully. 
While it was playing McCreary was making 
his speech. He gesticulated with great vehe- 
mence and turned an eloquent countenance to 
his would-be auditors, but not a sound escaped 
his lips. When the band got through he 
stopped. 

That night he sat down at His leisure and 
wrote out a speech fit to figure in the school 
readers. It was printed duly in the record of 
the proceedings, and nobody ever suspected 
that the crowd had been treated to a panto- 
mime. 



no The Show at Washington. 

Brookshire, of Indiana, entertained some 
constituents one evening by taking them to a 
symphony concert. The music palled on his 
taste after the first number, and before the 
concert was half through he passed the word 
to his friends and they all got up and filed out. 

When they reached the street they looked at 
one another with hazy expressions on their 
faces. The Hoosiers thought it a queer kind 
of entertainment, but they hesitated to express 
themselves for fear of offending their Congress- 
man. 

Finally one of them "mustered up courage to 
suggest that the performance was considerably 
different from anything to which they had been 
accustomed at home, and asked the Congress - 
man if that was the sort of thing he had learned 
to like in Washington. 

" Well," replied Brookshire tentatively. " It's 
quite the thing here, and everybody talks about 
it a good deal. That's the reason I try to en- 
joy it. But to tell you the truth, boys," he 
added, confidentially, " I don't think I really 
understand any music that isn't in the English 
language." 



Smoke Talks. in 



Judge Lisle, the brilliant young Congressman 
from the mountain district of Kentucky, has a 
brother as bright as he, who is a prosperous 
farmer at home. The farmer brother strolled 
into the village store in Winchester one day, 
and the local wit began to quiz him by asking 
what he was busying himself about. 

"Oh," he replied good-naturedly, "just cut- 
ting a little corn and raising a few pigs." 

"Just think of it," remarked the store- 
keeper, teasingly; "what a difference there is 
between members of the same family. Here 
you are just a plain, ordinary farmer, living 
along here raising a few pigs and cutting a little 
corn, and there's your brother Marcus up in 
Washington — one of the three hundred states- 
men who are framing the laws for sixty million 
people. Now what do you suppose Marcus is 
doing up there while you are loafing around 
here in Winchester ?" 

"Oh," replied the farmer, with a drawl, " I 
reckon he's roaming around like he always did, 
just asking everybody what's it all about." 



One of the characters of the House is the 
man who is known as "Farmer" Edmunds, 



112 The Show at Washington. 

of Virginia, and he is ever ready to tell stories 
upon himself. 

In the Fifty-first Congress Speaker Reed 
placed him upon the Committee on the Revision 
of the Laws, and "that rare old fellow," as the 
Maine man alluded to the Virginian, after meet- 
ing him, went to the Speaker and wanted to 
know why he put a farmer on such a commit- 
tee. But Tom Reed was equal to the occa- 
sion. 

" Mr. Edmunds," he said, in his placid 
manner. "To be candid with you, when I got 
nearly through my work I was compelled to 
stick some of the new men on the Democratic 
side in any places I had left. When I first 
came to Congress the Speaker put me down at 
the tail end of the Committee on Territories, 
and I pledge you my word and honor that at 
that time I would not have known a territory 
if I had met one walking down Pennsylvania 
Avenue." 

The Virginian offered no further objections 
to his committee place. 



Here is another of Edmunds' stories : When 
he was running for the upper branch of the 



Smoke Talks. 113 



State Legislature he went upon his canvass to 
the lower end of his district, and arrived there 
one Saturday night. In the evening his cam- 
paign manager said to him : " There is going 
to be a big meeting at the church to-morrow, 
and I think you had better put in an appear- 
ance there. There is nothing like attending 
service and shaking hands with the brethren 
and sisters to obtain votes." 

The candidate agreed, and the next morn- 
ing the two set out together for the church, but 
as the weather was warm, the road not any too 
smooth and the horse slow of motion the two 
politicians did not reach the sacred edifice until 
the service had commenced. Seats were scarce, 
and there was only room in what was known 
as "the amen corner," where the two men 
could not secure seats together, and were put 
several pews apart. 

They had been seated only a few moments 
when the preacher, who seemed to be looking 
squarely at the candidate for State Senator, on 
whom many eyes in the congregation were 
centred — the candidate hoped every eye was — 
said : " Will Brother Edmunds please lead us 
in prayer ?' ' 



114 The Show at Washington. 

However much of a believer Mr. Edmunds 
is in religion, he is one of those men who have 
never prayed in public. He was consequently 
in a dreadful state of agitation, and great drops 
of perspiration rolled down his kindly face. But 
he arose, feeling that it was his duty and a 
stern campaign necessity to make a first 
attempt. Naturally, he hesitated, and just then 
he heard a voice behind him commencing a 
prayer. It seemed that the brother, who sat 
just behind him, was also named Edmunds, 
and that he was the real man to whom the 
speaker had spoken. 

Congressman Edmunds says that he never 
enjoyed a prayer so much in his life as the one 
that his namesake made that day, while he sat 
down and congratulated himself upon his 
narrow escape. 



There are too many Hendersons in Wash- 
ington to have matters move along smoothly 
among the different possessors of that family 
name. There are three members of Congress 
of the name from the States of Illinois, Iowa 
and North Carolina. 

One day Congressman Henderson, of Iowa, 



Smoke Talks. 115 



received a letter, which read : " Get out your 
whitewashing pail and come up to the house. 
There is a piece of ceiling that needs your at- 
tention right away. This time we want no fool- 
ing about the matter, either. You have dis- 
appointed us several times already, and this 
time we propose to take no excuses. The 
whitewashing must be done, and at once, and 
you must do it." 

For a time the Republican leader from Iowa 
was non-plussed, but at last he decided that 
the epistle had wandered from its true course, 
and had come to him by mistake. So he 
sealed it up, wrote upon the envelope, " Opened 
by mistake, probably meant for Congressman 
Henderson, of North Carolina," and sent the 
letter back to the post-office. 

The epistle was then sent to the North Caro- 
lina Henderson, who read it in surprise, and 
experienced the same mental emotions as did 
his Iowa namesake. He sealed it up again, 
and wrote upon the outside, " Opened by mis- 
take by J. S. Henderson. Try T. J. Hender- 
son, Congressman from Illinois." 

Back the letter went to the post-office, and 
thence to the Congressman from Illinois, but he 



Ii6 The Show at Washington. 

decided that it was not for him, and recom- 
mended in writing on the outside that it be sent 
to Congressman Henderson, of Iowa. 

But the post-office authorities took a hand in 
the game at this juncture, investigated the Hen- 
derson mystery and delivered the letter to its 
rightful owner. This individual was a man by 
the name of Henderson, who takes care of the 
fires at the Capitol, does odd pieces of work at 
different times, and makes a specialty of white- 
washing. 

A strange and important historical fact came 
to light recently in the shape of a legend that 
Springer, of Illinois, he of the red carnation 
and perpetual motion, was once actually non- 
plussed. 

As the story is told, this historical event hap- 
pened several years ago when a tariff debate 
was on in the House. Judge Kelley, of Penn- 
sylvania, the "father of protection," as he was 
called, was a firm believer on the value of 
object lessons. The subject under discussion 
was pottery, and the Pennsylvania Congress- 
man was teaching a lesson to the House. 

Resting on his desk was a huge piece of 
pottery, beautiful as it was big, burnished cop- 



Smoke Talks. 117 



per in color, with delicate grape vines running 
artistically over it. Twining his arms lovingly 
around it, Judge Kelley began his speech. He 
was a ponderous orator, his early experience as 
an actor in the days when the pronunciation of 
every syllable and every sentence was con- 
sidered a sine qua non of elegant oratory hav- 
ing molded his manner of speaking. 

In his leisurely way he proceeded to show 
how much the raw material in that work of art 
cost, how much the workmanship and some 
facts about the prices. But Mr. Springer con- 
cluded that it would not do to let Judge Kelley 
proceed any further with an object lesson which 
was going to show that labor was about the 
only thing protected when it came to pottery, 
so he rose and pointing his finger satirically 
toward the Pennsylvanian, sarcastically in- 
quired : " Mr. Speaker, what is that thing ?" 

The Pennsylvanian never removed his arms 
from the artistic creation. Raising his voice 
higher he said : " Mr. Speaker, in Il-li-noi-y 
it would be called a spittoon ; in Pennsylvania, 
sir, we call it a vase." 

In the roar that followed Springer sat down 
and actually wilted. 



IN THE SPEAKER'S EYE. 



rM REED'S pen nets him from two to 
three thousand dollars every year outside 
his salary as a Congressman. He commands 
his own prices, and his market is always waiting 
for him. He is indolent by nature and indulges 
in literary composition only when the mood is 
on him. His moods generally depend on 
whether he has in hand an order from one of 
the big magazines. He has never reached the 
stage where he is willing to sit down and write 
a thing in cold blood on the chance of getting 
a publisher for it. 

When one of the magazines wants anything 
from him the editor lets him know exactly what 
is wanted, and just when it is necessary to have 
it. Occasionally an inexperienced editor will, 
imagine he is gaining a point by making his 
application a month or six weeks in advance. 
This is a needless precaution. Reed can do a 
thing as well in a day as in a month. No 
118 



In the Speakers Eye. 119 

matter how long a notice may be given, he 
puts off the work until it can no longer be 
postponed ; then he sits down with a stenogra- 
pher and talks right along for an hour or two, 
and the thing is done. He thinks in epigrams, 
and it is as easy for him to speak one or to 
write one as it would be for another man to 
ask the time of day. 



Young Bailey, of Texas, and the learned 
Culberson are an odd pair of chums. The 
youthful expounder of the Constitution, the first 
day he took his seat in Congress, selected the 
hard-headed old lawyer for his guide, philoso- 
pher and friend. He told him frankly what he 
expected to do, and asked what was the best 
course for a young man to pursue in order to 
attract the attention of the House. 

" Ride a hobby, my boy, ride a hobby !" was 
the old judge's sententious reply, and the young 
fellow promptly took charge of the Constitution. 
The two have been close friends ever since. 
They can be seen any day strolling up from the 
Capitol to the Metropolitan hotel with their 
frock coats and broad-brimmed felt hats, the 
9 



120 The Show at Washington. 

smooth boyish face of one contrasting pleas- 
antly with the grizzled countenance of the 
older man. 

Dolliver, of Iowa, is a Congressman whom it 
is not easy to place among the most youthful 
members of the House, but he is only thirty- 
five years old, and when he startled the House 
with a splendid outburst of eloquence early in 
the Fifty-first Congress he had hardly turned 
his thirtieth birthday. Dolliver was a mere 
boy of twenty-six when his name first became 
known to the country. Blaine happened to 
hear him speak at a political meeting during 
the famous swing around the circle in 1884, 
and the Maine leader was so charmed with the 
youthful orator's dash and fervor and with the 
brilliancy of his diction that he predicted for 
Dolliver a distinguished political career. Dolli- 
ver, like Cockran, courts the companionship of 
the older and more distinguished members of 
the House. He has already justified Blaine's 
estimate of his powers. 



Bynum, of Indiana, was a candidate for the 
speakership in the Hoosier House of Repre- 



In the Speaker's Eye. 1 21 

sentatives in 1883, and won the prize after a 
close contest. There was an old fellow, named 
Graham, from Posey county, who was serving 
his first term, and who declined to pledge his 
support to anybody. Bynum was very anxious 
to get his vote and went after it. The Hoosier 
listened to the candidate's arguments respect- 
fully, and then blurted out : 

"You're all right, Mr. Bynum. I'd just as 
lief vote for you as any man, but I don't be- 
lieve in this idea of electing a speaker. It 
seems to me that every member of the House 
ought to be allowed to do his own speaking for 
himself." 



"Dave" Henderson, of Iowa, with his fiery 
eloquence, is one of the picturesque figures in 
the House. He stumps around on a wooden 
leg, which takes the place of a nimble limb 
that went from under him at the battle of Cor- 
inth. The wound which cost him his leg, and 
nearly cost him his life, was not his first wound 
or his last. He returned to the field before it 
had fairly healed. Henderson was a boy in 
school when the war broke out, but his Scotch 
blood leaped to the sound of the firing on Fort 



The Show at Washington. 



Sumter. He brought his schoolmates together, 
made a stirring appeal, and formed on the spot 
the nucleus of a company to go to the front. 
He was a lieutenant temporarily in command, 
of this company at the storming of Fort Don- 
elson, and while joining in the charge on the 
Rebel works he was terribly wounded in the 
neck. He refused to give up his place, how- 
ever, until the Union forces were in full posses- 
sion, and then he sank to the ground com- 
pletely exhausted from loss of blood. 



Tom Reed furnished the Democrats with a 
campaign cry in 1892, which stuck until the 
day of election. Half a dozen members of 
Congress were grouped about his desk one day 
in August talking politics and trying to laugh 
themselves cool. There were three or four 
Democrats among the number, and Dolliver 
jokingly taunted them on the tameness of their 
campaign. 

"The trouble with your ticket is that you 
haven't got a catch word that hits the people," 
he said. "The bandanna was the strongest 



In the Speaker's Eye. 123 

thing about the ticket four years ago, and you 
haven't got anything to take its place." 

"That's so," exclaimed Catchings. "We 
need some sort of a cry the worst way." 

" But you have a cry," remonstrated Reed, 
" and a very good one — the prophet and the 
ballot box— both stuffed." 



There is no more interesting man in the 
House than Boutelle, of Maine. A big, hand- 
some fellow he is, with a voice that penetrates 
every part of the House, and an eye that com- 
mands attention. He is the most thorough 
and enthusiastic of Republicans, and unsparing 
in his attacks upon the opposing party. He is 
a good speaker, and is always listened to with 
the greatest interest. 

Boutelle has had a most interesting career. 
His father was a New England sea captain, and 
from him the Congressman inherited a love for 
the sea. He started his ocean career in his 
father's ships and continued in them for eight 
years. Then he began a brilliant career in the 
navy, putting down several mutinies, winning 
repeated promotion for gallant conduct, until 



124 The Show at Washington. 

finally he reached the highest grade which a 
volunteer officer could then obtain in the 
service. 

After the war he gave up the sea and be- 
came an editor. An editor he is yet, for he 
and his brother run the Bangor Whig and 
Courier. 

The first time he ran for Congress he was 
defeated, but not discouraged, even though he 
ran in a Democratic district. At the next elec- 
tion he fought still harder and was handsomely 
elected. He has been six times nominated 
without a dissenting voice in caucus or conven- 
tion in the most populous district of Maine. 
Ever since he has been in Congress he has 
been the mainstay of the Naval Committee in 
the House. 

There is nothing regarding the navy that 
Boutelle does not know, and successive secre- 
taries of both parties come to him for advice 
regarding the work of the department. Per- 
haps a higher compliment was never paid a 
Congressman than when, near the close of the 
first session of the Fifty-first Congress, while 
all hands were full of fight, the House, without 
debate and by unanimous vote, passed a joint 



In the Speakers Eye. 125 

resolution appropriating a plump million dollars 
for the use of the Secretary of the Navy in pur- 
chasing nickel ore, on Boutelle's personal state- 
ment that he had investigated the matter and 
that it was all right. 



Every time tellers are appointed in the 
House there is an interesting sight. A mem- 
ber on each side of the question under dispute 
takes his stand in front of the Speaker's desk 
and the members file between the two men and 
record their votes. There are two men who 
do not do this. They are Stone, of Kentucky, 
and Sickles, of New York. Each of these lost 
a leg in the war and is obliged to use a crutch 
at all times. Whenever a vote is taken by 
tellers some member near one of them finds 
out how he wishes to vote, then takes his 
crutch and marches with it down to the front, 
passing between the tellers. The vote is re- 
corded and the crutch is taken back to its 
owner again. 

The House has a saying that " Kilgore is 
mightier than the majority." Its truth has 



126 The Show at Washington. 

been proved by the way in which he has de- 
feated alone and unaided more than one meas- 
ure which over two-thirds of the House wished 
to have passed. His baptismal name is Con- 
stantine Buckley Kilgore, and his every-day 
title is the appropriate one of "Buck." 

A picture of Kilgore sitting at his desk in the 
House does not reveal his character. He has 
a kind and almost benevolent cast of features, 
and with his white hair and massive chin 
whisker he looks the incarnation of charity 
towards all and malice towards none. No 
matter how fierce and bitter the contest that 
is raging around his head, no matter what is 
said about him by those on the other side, 
there is always a good-natured but deceptive 
smile upon his face. 

One secret of Kilgore's success as a filibus- 
terer is, that he does not know the meaning of 
the word "tired." With a splendid frame and 
great physical strength he never wearies, and 
can stand his ground until he wears his oppo- 
nents out. He has seen hard service in the 
ranks, fighting in Mexico and along the Texas 
border, and is an athlete of no mean ability. 



In the Speakers Eye. 127 

Asher Caruth, of Kentucky, was the first 
man in Washington to appear in one of the 
suits of Kentucky tow which Tom Reed has 
made famous as an article of summer attire. 
The first day he put it on he strolled into Car- 
lisle's room at the Treasury Department. Car- 
lisle gazed at him in astonishment. " What in 
thunder have you got on ?" he demanded. 

" That is a pretty question for a Kentuckian 
to ask," was the reply. " It's a suit of Ken- 
tucky tow, and the beauty of it is that the 
oftener you wash it the better it looks." 

" My dear boy," said Carlisle, in a com- 
miserating tone ; " you had better get it washed 
again right away." 



Two of the greatest chums in the House are 
Cornish and Cadmus, of New Jersey. They 
are generally to be seen in each other's com- 
pany, and usually arm in arm. They lunch 
together, dine together and spend the evenings 
together at Chamberlin's. Each expects to be 
Governor of New Jersey some day, and their 
only regret is that they cannot both be Governor 
at the same time. 



128 The Show at Washington. 

George Washington Murray, the colored con- 
gressman from South Carolina, has a private 
secretary who is even blacker than he. The 
congressman has a finer perception of the fit- 
ness of things than many of his white asso- 
ciates. He never condescends to travel around 
to the departments himself on errands of his 
constituents, but invariably sends his young 
colored assistant with notes couched in the 
most exuberant rhetoric. 



Congressman Boutelle retails a bit of expe- 
rience which he thinks illustrates the way 
things go on in the Senate. When he reached 
Boston on his way to Washington from Bangor, 
once he wanted a carriage in a hurry to take 
him across the city to the Old Colony station. 

The first driver he hailed was going to a 
different part of the city, and the congressman 
turned to another who was standing not far 
away. The cabby looked at him with cool 
disdain. 

" Didn't I see you talking to that other gen- 
tleman just now ?" he inquired haughtily. 

" Certainly," replied the congressman. 



In the Speakers Eye. 129 

"Were you negotiating with him to carry 
you ?" 

"Of course, I was," responded the puzzled 
and impatient representative. " What business 
is that of your's ?" 

" In that case," said the cabby, who evi- 
dently believed that the congressman had been 
trying to jew his companion down and pro- 
posed to protect the dignity of the craft, " you 
will have to get across the city as best you 
can," and he turned coolly away. 

" That," says Boutelle, when he tells the 
story, "illustrates the famous 'senatorial court- 
esy.' My choler was rising and I was counting 
the minutes. Just then a herdic drove by, and 
I hailed it. The driver drew up in spite of the 
signals of the courteous cabby for him to drive 
on. « Do you carry people for money ?' I de- 
manded. 'You bet!' yelled the driver. And 
before the other fellow could interfere I had 
hustled my satchel into the herdic and was 
tearing away to the station. That was • clo- 



There is a remarkable similarity between 
the craniums of Senator Hill and Speaker 



130 The Show at Washington. 

Crisp. The two statesmen could swap hats 
without knowing it ; their high foreheads run 
up along the same dome-like lines, spreading 
into expanses of baldness of equal resplend- 
ency and extent ; their chins would fit into the 
same mold, and so would their ears ; while it 
would take a physiognomist to trace the lines 
of individual character in each from a com- 
parison of the infinitesimal variations in the 
contour of the nose. 



John DeWitt Warner, of New York, caught 
in certain combinations of light and shadow, 
is a perfect fac-simile of James A. Garfield. 

The resemblance is so striking as to be al- 
most ghastly. It shows especially in the side 
face, the shape of the head and the reddish 
color of the hair and beard. 

Warner is immensely proud of the likeness, 
and takes pains to turn the resemblance profile 
to the observer whenever he finds himself the 
target of a pair of eyes. 



« 

In the Speaker's Eye. 131 

Dr. Everett, of Massachusetts, and Ashbel 
Fitch, of New York, seated themselves on a 
divan in the Arlington lobby for a little chat. 

The New York congressman was enjoying 
his cigar as usual, and politely asked his 
scholastic companion if he objected to smoking. 

" I always reply to that question in one way," 
responded the doctor with a little grimace, "if 
you can stand it I can." 



Speaker Crisp is an inveterate smoker, and 
he has the reputation of puffing the cheapest 
cigars of any member of Congress. He has a 
way of sitting in the doorway of the Demo- 
cratic cloak-room, enveloped in clouds of 
smoke, while listening to speeches on the floor. 
The members of the House have, in self-de- 
fense, adopted the custom of giving him cigars 
so that they can come within smelling distance 
while he is smoking. 

Tom Reed has also taken to the weed again. 
Until the beginning of the present Congress he 
had not touched a cigar for four years, but he 
has suddenly gone back to his old habits, and 



132 The Show at Washington. 

is seldom seen outside the halls of the House 
without a fragrant Havana between his lips. 

The Speaker and the ex-Speaker are almost 
the only members of the House who respect 
the rule forbidding smoking on the floor. 



Richardson, of Tennessee, is the man whom 
Speaker Crisp most often calls to the chair. He 
is a Tennessee mountaineer, over six feet tall, 
with a little tapering head, and his principal 
distinction lies in the fact that he is the thinnest 
man in Congress. He is an excellent specimen 
of the poor white who has become prosperous 
through his own exertions, and he knows just 
enough about parliamentary law to shut off 
debate when he sees things going the wrong 
way. His great feature as a presiding officer is 
the athletic way in which he pounds the desk 
with his gavel. He shows it no mercy, and 
has broken gavels and desks alike while he 
has occupied the Speaker's chair. 

Richardson is a Presbyterian elder, a Sunday- 
school superintendent, an ex-candidate for the 
ministry, and is possessed of inexhaustible 



In the Speaker's Eye. 133 

capacity for debate on every conceivable sub- 
ject. 

Dalzell, of Pennsylvania, is as dapper as he 
is bright. He is slight of figure, agile of motion 
and possessed of a piercing voice which is 
almost feminine in its compass. 

He has an odd way of carrying his head, 
slightly cocked to one side with a saucy toss, 
like a pert young bantam spoiling for a scrim- 
mage with the other chickens in the barnyard. 

Dalzell is one of the most effective debaters 
in the House, and he has a special faculty for 
asking disconcerting questions. 



HOKE, "SHAN," STERLING AND 
" DAN" 



HOKE SMITH is the joke of the Cabinet, 
and his appointment is regarded as a 
sure proof that Mr. Cleveland is something of 
a wag himself. But the gentleman from Geor- 
gia does not consider it a joke, nor does he see 
anything funny, in being secretary of the inte- 
rior. He takes himself very seriously, and is 
about the only person who does. He prides 
himself upon the number of hours that he sits 
at his desk, and thinks that that is the main 
thing connected with being a Cabinet officer. 
He insists that he is not lazy, but that all his 
life he has labored night and day. He says 
he likes work ; but in spite of this statement he 
spends much of his time in loafing about the 
hotels, sitting with his feet on the window sill 
of the smoking-room, or leaning up against the 
lamp post outside. He couldn't be dignified if 
he tried ; and when he does try he is funnier 
134 



Hoke, "S&an," Sterlmg and "Dan" 135 

than ever. He does not waste much time in 
sleep, and boasts that he and Napoleon could 
get along with few hours of rest. He is very- 
fond of quoting the words of Franklin's famous 
maxim, "six hours of sleep for a man, seven 
for a woman, eight for a child, nine for a fool." 



Hoke thinks that he is too busy to go into 
society, too busy to make acquaintances of that 
sort. In one respect he is fortunate. He has 
a constitution of iron that nothing can break 
down. He is never sick ; everything he does 
and everything he eats agrees with him. He 
can run like a professional, despite his weight ; 
can row and swim like a backwoodsman, and 
box like a Corbett. He is the man on horse- 
back of the administration. When the Cabi- 
net has a meeting he rides up to the White 
House at breakneck speed like a cow-boy, dis- 
mounts at the door, and, as Jefferson is reputed 
to have done at the time of his first inaugura- 
tion, ties his horse himself. 

In this way he makes himself conspicuous 
by dashing about the streets on his big bay 
gelding, the clanking of whose hoofs on the 
10 



136 The Show at Washington. 

asphalt driveway of the White House grounds 
just before Cabinet meeting can be heard a 
square away. When he wishes to appear dig- 
nified he rides about in an open yellow wagon, 
pulled by the same horse on whose back he 
delights to exhibit himself. The horse bears 
the name of Bucephalus, and he and the sec- 
retary of the interior have been boon compan- 
ions for years. They came to Washington to- 
gether, and Bucephalus occupied an express 
car all to himself on the trip from Atlanta, 
while the owner contented himself with an 
upper berth. 



Mr. Smith's advice has little weight at the 
President's council board. He is really noth- 
ing but a big boy, and his colleagues treat him 
as one. They like him well enough in his 
way. He is a kind of unexpected rocket at 
their meetings, always likely to spring up with 
some startling and almost blood-curdling prop- 
osition. He disagrees with the President, tells 
him about it to his face, calls it independence, 
and then writes about it to his paper, and has 
it printed, with startling headlines, the next 



Hoke, "Shan, u Sterling and " Dan." 137 

day. The President and the Cabinet humor 
him as they would a child. In fact, every one 
considers him harmless. 



Hoke takes a pride in writing letters; he 
works them off by the basketful. He is fond 
of reading his own literary productions, and 
bought the Atlanta Journal because he wanted 
to write editorials and see them in print. He 
used to do tariff editorials, mark them with a 
red pencil, and send them to Mr. Cleveland ; 
he says that is one reason why he is now a 
member of the Cabinet. He still writes for his 
paper, but now only about himself. He has a 
strict order in his newspaper office that every 
complimentary thing that is said about him 
shall be at once reprinted ; then he sends on 
items himself from Washington about his grow- 
ing popularity and the immense amount of 
work that he is doing. He treats his Cabinet 
office as a boy would a new toy. 



He is . rich, but he does not spend much 
money. He claims that his income as the 



138 The Show at Washington. 

silent partner of his legal firm at Atlanta is 
three or four times the amount of his Cabinet 
salary. He does not drink ; he does not 
smoke. The secretaryship is the first political 
office that he ever held, and it has caused an 
Oliver Twist taste in his mouth for more. He 
wants to be governor of his state; he wants 
to be senator ; he wants to be President ; and 
he thinks he could be President if he only lived 
in a Northern state. 



The biggest man in the Cabinet is Postmaster 
General Bissell. For a time he and Secretary 
Hoke Smith were rivals for this distinction, and 
each had his supporters who loudly proclaimed 
that their man was the heavier. But a fair 
trial was made with the scales, and the Buffalo 
lawyer won by twenty-two pounds over the At- 
lanta editor. In fact, " Shan " Bissell is so 
large, physically, that he had to have a chair 
made especially for him. The chair that John 
Wanamaker used was too small, and the new 
one is mammoth in size, and has all the ap- 
pearance of a rustic bench. 



Hoke, "Skan" Sterling and " Dan." 139 

Mr. Bissell's pictures flatter him wonderfully. 
On close inspection his lips are almost an inch 
thick, and they are fearfully ungovernable. 
His flesh is flabby ; it has the appearance of 
having been poured on hot and cooled un- 
evenly. But he is a good laugher, and enjoys 
a good joke. Long before you see his eyes 
twinkle or hear the guttural of his voice his 
laugh shows itself around his ears, and comes 
creeping over the top of his head in waves of 
flesh. Like the mountain, he laughs with joy, 
but, unlike the hills, he has none of the agility 
of the lamb. 



Bissell is the story teller of the Cabinet and 
of the administration. A good share of the 
time that he spends in his office is given over 
to telling stories. The people who come to see 
him expect it. He does not make his callers 
come into his room in single file. The more 
the merrier so far as he is concerned. He 
likes crowds, and does not like solitude ; there 
is no such thing as privacy in the postmaster- 
general's office. If you wish to see him in 
private you must go to his house on K Street 



140 The Show at Washington. 

in the. evening, and you must go early, too, for 
he does not spend much time at home. 



The doors leading to his room in the post- 
office building are always open ; if you have 
anything to say to him you say it in the pres- 
ence of whoever is in the room at the time. 
But the people who go there to see him do not 
have much to say. Mr. Bissell does the talk- 
ing himself. He spends many hours a day 
in his office. He is the first to arrive in the 
morning, and he is there at night long after 
most of the clerks have finished their work and 
have gone home. 



Mr. Bissell is too good natured to make a 
good postmaster-general. The office requires 
a man who will overhaul things and be firm in 
his decisions ; he is not that kind of a man. 
He is careless about minor matters, and has 
an unbounded faith that things will come out 
all right in the end anyway whether he makes 
a mistake or not. Such a thing as worry is a 
stranger to him. When he goes out of the 
building at night he leaves the cares of his 



Hok&, "Skan" Sterling and "Dan." 141 

office behind him ; he ceases to be postmaster- 
general, and becomes a man fond of good com- 
pany. " Old wines to drink, old songs to sing, 
old stories to tell " is the summum bonum of his 
existence. 



The Buffalo lawyer cannot refuse a favor ; 
he has no firmness in his makeup, and is easily 
influenced. When he makes a decision no one 
knows how long it will stand ; if a man comes 
in and wants it changed it will be changed. In 
a mild way he believes in civil service reform, 
but in nothing are his views radical. He does 
not want to bother himself about appointments. 
He leaves these questions to his subordinates, 
and lets them have their own way, unless a storm 
of opposition compels him to take the matter 
into his own hands. He is independent in not 
caring what is said about him : newspaper crit- 
icism has no effect whatever upon him ; printed 
attacks amuse him, that is all. 



Scarcely a night passes that the postmaster- 
general is not at the White House. He stays 
there late, too, and almost any evening can be 



142 The Show at Washington. 

seen coming out of the .White House grounds 
about midnight. He is quite a pedestrian for 
all of his hundreds of pounds. He swings 
along the streets at a rapid gait, and takes long 
walks in the country. He likes tobacco even 
better than he does walking, and is seldom 
without a cigar. He has his special brand 
manufactured expressly for him and put up in 
dainty boxes. 

The postmaster -general is not much of a 
reader. He likes magazines better than he 
does books, and newspapers better than all. 
When he does take up a book it is generally 
one on law, and his law library is one of the 
most extensive in Washington. One of his 
fads is to have his picture taken ; his home is 
a regular portrait gallery of himself, taken in 
all attitudes and at all times. He has an album 
containing a picture of himself for every year 
of his life, and this album and the scrap book, 
telling of the events that went on while he was 
at Yale, are among his most valued possessions. 



J. Sterling Morton is really the best scholar 
in the Cabinet. In fact, his mind is a curious 



Hoke, "Shan" Sterling and "Dan." 143 

composite photograph of knowledge. He can 
write an article in French, or drive a mowing 
machine ; write a classical poem, or handle a 
hoe. He speaks French and German as easily 
as he does English ; he reads agricultural 
works and books in different languages. His 
specialty is trees, and this he is making the 
real study of his life. He whiles away his time 
at his desk by writing little verses, but he never 
allows these to be printed. 



He used to have a newspaper of his own, 
and he studied law and wrote editorials at the 
same time. His life has always been one of 
contention. He likes politics, and can always 
be found in the thickest of every fight. One 
of his titles is " The stormy petrel of Nebraska 
politics." He has always been trying to do 
something, and usually succeeding. He has 
stumped the state of Nebraska more times than 
he has fingers. He has been at odds with his 
party in his state and with its leaders. He 
made his reputation by founding " Arbor day," 
and this started him in the direction of the 
study of forestry. 



144 The Show at Washington. 

Morton's wife died about ten years ago. On 
the tombstone he had carved also his own 
name and the name of his sons. He showed 
the tombstone to his sons. " If either of you," 
said he, " does a dishonorable thing, I will 
have his name chiselled off that stone." 



You would not expect that the most exclu- 
sive member of the Cabinet would be the man 
who once sold newspapers upon the streets of 
Albany ; but such is the case. " Dan " Lamont 
is the most exclusive member of Mr. Cleve- 
land's Cabinet. It is harder to get an opportu- 
nity to see him than it is any of his Cabinet 
colleagues. You can walk without reserve into 
Gresham's room, and be sure of a hearty, 
Western greeting; you can gossip with Car- 
lisle over persons and things ; but you can do 
none of these things with Lamont. There is a 
covering of reserve about him that it is impossi- 
ble to break through. He has a combined air 
of business and mystery that makes familiarity 
a stranger. 

He always has the appearance of a man who 
is too busy to talk with you, and who regards 



Hoke, "Shan" Sterling and "Dan." 145 

it as wasting every moment of the time while 
you are with him. He has been the confiden- 
tial man of so many prominent men — Tilden, 
Cleveland and the rest — and so accustomed to 
keep their secrets locked up fast in his breast ; 
he has repressed his feelings so long in his 
efforts to be studiously diplomatic that natural 
cordiality he has lost. 



Lamont is the hardest man in Washington 
to find. The war department, the White House 
and the secretary's private residence are all 
within shooting distance of each other, and yet 
if a man, whom Colonel " Dan " is not partic- 
ularly anxious to see, starts out to locate the 
secretary he has a good three days' job before 
him. If the anxious caller goes to the depart- 
ment he is told that the secretary is at his resi- 
dence ; if he goes to the residence he is told 
that the secretary is at the department. Gener- 
ally, he is at the White House. 



Lamont is not so much a Cabinet officer as 
he is Mr. Cleveland's confidential adviser. He 
never was more thoroughly the President's 



146 The Show at Washington. 

private secretary than he is to-day. He does 
the private secretary's thinking, while Mr. 
Thurber holds the position and attends to the 
routine. Thurber is the clerk and Lamont the 
secretary. Whenever there is a question in the 
President's mind as to what should be done it 
is to " Dan " that he turns for advice, and 
" Dan " is always ready with a solution. 



Lamont is the politician of the administra- 
tion, and his real title is Secretary of Politics 
and Expediency. He was put into the Cabinet 
for this purpose. This is why he refused to be 
postmaster-general. That office would require 
too much attention ; he preferred the war port- 
folio, for in that department matters drift along 
quietly and run themselves. He is a good 
executive officer ; that he has shown and is 
showing ; but, above all, he is a politician, and 
all his life has been devoted to politics. 



He is the one person to whom the door of 
the White House is never shut, and whom the 
President is never too busy to. see. He is in 



Hoke, "Shan," Sterling and '" Dan." 147 

daily conference with Mr. Cleveland. He does 
not care for society, and goes out only for the 
sake of his wife. He reads books much, but 
he is fondest of newspapers, and retains the 
ability of a journalist to read all the papers 
without performing the work of actually read- 
ing one. 



He uses neither tobacco nor liquor, no mat- 
ter what the occasion. He once said that all 
his people were Presbyterians, and that he was 
brought up in that faith. " And do you attend 
a Presbyterian church in town ? " he was asked. 
" My wife does," said he ; an answer that was 
the fruit of twenty years of training in politics. 
In everything, except his abundant humor, he 
is an intensely practical man, who looks upon 
the world as a workshop in which he has 
enough to do to keep him busy all his life, and 
in politics he is no less practical than in all 
things else. 



TOLD AFTER ADJOURNMENT. 



SENATOR VANCE, of North Carolina, is a 
mine of picturesque anecdotes. Here is 
one of his tales. Along early in the '40s Ashe- 
ville was a good deal smaller place than it is 
now, and it was away out of the beaten line of 
travel. The only man in town who could read 
was the postmaster, whose name was Brown. 
The rest of the natives were entirely dependent 
upon him for their knowledge of what was go- 
ing on in the outside world. 

The habitues of the post-office at last struck 
on the brilliant idea of subscribing for a weekly 
paper in common. All subscribed to the pool 
with the exception of the postmaster, who was 
admitted free in view of his services as reader, 
and Brown arranged to have the old National 
Intelligencer, of Washington, forwarded every 
week to his address. 

The newspaper was practically the only mail 
that came to the town, and special arrange- 
148 



Told After Adjournment. 1 49 

ments were made to have it brought up regu- 
larly from Salisbury, twenty miles away. When 
the paper came in Brown would assemble the 
members of the pool and read it to them, be- 
ginning religiously with the announcement of 
rates, at the top of the first column of the first 
page, and going through to the end. On pleas- 
ant days the neighbors didn't have a great deal 
of time to devote to literature, and they got in 
the habit of coming around for their news 
rations only when the weather was too rainy 
for outdoor work. 

At this rate Brown found that he couldn't 
keep up with the procession, and he adopted a 
plan of reading the papers in order, forming a 
stack, shoving the latest issue underneath and 
taking them off the top one by one. The stock 
kept growing on him, and to make matters 
worse the Intelligencer increased its size about 
that time by a couple of columns on each page. 
Still the postmaster kept bravely on, and by 
the time the Mexican war broke out there was 
a stack of formidable size to attend to. 

As the village depended altogether for its 
information on these occasional readings, no- 



150 The Show at Washington. 

body heard anything about the outbreak of the 
war till after peace had been declared. 

Then they reached the war layer of the In- 
telligencer, and as the news began to culminate 
in the reading the excitement grew intense. 
There was only one thing for them to do as 
patriotic Americans, and they promptly did it. 
They organized a company, including every 
man of fighting age in the town, elected Brown 
captain, and started out bravely for the scene 
of operations, with old flint locks in their hands 
and badger tails in their hats. 

They got as far as Salisbury before they dis- 
covered the real state of affairs, and when they 
found out how badly they had been cheated by 
the postmaster they made the town so hot for 
the poor fellow that he had to take French 
leave. 



Senator Proctor, in his quiet, homely way, is 
one of the shrewdest business men in the 
United States. He got his first start toward a 
great fortune through the kind offices of Inter- 
state Commerce Commissioner Veazey. Proc- 
tor and Veazey were members of the same law 
firm, at Rutland, a good many years ago. 



Told After Adjournment. 151 

Afterward Veazey was promoted to the bench, 
and while in that position the affairs of an in- 
solvent marble firm in West Rutland came be- 
fore him for adjustment. 

He appointed Proctor receiver of the con- 
cern, and Proctor managed the business so 
skillfully that in a few months it was on a fair 
way to a paying business. Proctor saw his 
opportunity, formed a pool, and got the quar- 
ries into his own hands. From that day he 
has been piling up wealth without a break. 

The senator has an apparently careless habit 
of buying up farms. Every little while an item 
will appear in one of the local papers to the 
effect that he has made an addition to his agri- 
cultural possessions, and the good people of 
Rutland long ago learned to look for the unex- 
pected discovery of a new marble quarry very 
soon after one of these inexpensive farms came 
into his hands. 



Here is a story Which Benton McMillin tells 
of Reed : During the Fifty-first Congress onQ 
of the new Western members broke out in a 
maiden speech that was intended to be the sen- 
sation of the hour. It was certainly a remark- 
11 



152 The Show at Washington. 

abla effort. The orator strode up and down 
the aisle, wildly swung his arms and swept 
back his hair, and with eyes glaring and bosom 
distended, he poured forth a torrent of wordy 
eloquence. 

The Speaker stood it as long as he could. 
Then he beckoned the Tennesseean. " McMil- 
lin," he said, " I am glad to have lived to this 
hour. It has been a profitable day with me. 

Before P began his oration I had never 

been fully able to appreciate the beauty and 
appropriateness of the Scriptural allusion to 
the 'wild ass's colt."' 



A good story is told of how Congressman 
Kyle, of Mississippi, came to be elected. He 
was but little known in his district, having 
never had occasion to mingle much with the 
voters, but he entered the race with four widely- 
known, brilliant campaigners. 

It was necessary for him to use all his shrewd- 
ness. It is a very large district in territory, and 
altogether agricultural, and as the canvass 
opened along in May, the farmers were very 



Told After Adjournment. 153 

busy, and did not have time to talk politics. 
But Kyle adopted a novel plan. 

He went the rounds of the district in a buggy, 
with a big, stout negro to drive him. He went 
right to the fields of the white voters, and driv- 
ing up to where the sovereign was plowing, he 
would introduce himself. Then he would make 
the negro take hold of the plow and turn many 
a furrow while he and the farmer took a smoke 
under a shade tree and talked over the situa- 
tion. 

The plan worked to a charm, for the farmer 
would talk for any length of time his work was 
being done for him. Kyle secured the support 
of the horny-handed voters, and was triumph- 
antly elected. 



In spite of its advertising properties, the 
beard of Senator Peffer has its drawbacks. He 
is a great letter writer, and likes to devote much 
of his time in the Senate to this occupation. 
But his famous beard is so long that it rests 
upon his desk, and when he is engaged in 
writing it wanders along the paper and seriously 
interferes with his penmanship. He is com- 



154 The Show at Washington. 

pelled to hold his beard off the desk with one 
hand while he writes with the other. 



The Democrats of McMillin's district in Ten- 
nessee have never held another congressional 
convention since he was first nominated, 
eighteen years ago. No one else has ever 
thought of competing for the nomination. 
This practice will doubtless continue as long 
as he wishes to represent his district in Con- 
gress. 

Down in the second row of seats in the House 
sits a short man with a patriarchal beard and a 
most beneficent smile, who spends most of his 
time in writing letters. In appearance he is 
the most harmless and peaceful of men, and it 
is almost impossible to realize what his past 
career has been. 

This innocent-looking and insignificant- 
appearing individual is none other than Gen- 
eral Joseph Wheeler, the most daring cavalry- 
rider that sat upon the saddle during the civil 
war. At the head of a troop of Confederate 
cavalry his name inspired fear and trembling 



Told After Adjournment. 155 

in the hearts of the Union army. He was 
noted for his boldness, courage and reckless- 
ness. 

He is not a great orator, and his voice in its 
present condition would not be up to the de- 
mands of giving commands to a troop of cavalry. 

When he gets up to make a speech he is 
almost hidden from view by a pile of reference 
books upon his desk. He starts out bravely, 
and for a few sentences his sentiments ring out 
in tones that are heard to the farthest bounds 
of the gallery. 

But gradually his voice weakens, his words 
become faint and indistinct, it is difficult for 
him to be heard even by those around him, 
and at last, with a final and departing squeak, 
his voice leaves him entirely and retires to the 
recesses of his throat. He is not easily dis- 
couraged, however, and still continues to speak 
when only his lips move and not a sound comes 
forth from them. 



There is a queer incident connected with the 
election of Gibson, of Maryland, to a seat in 
the Senate. Gibson had been a member of the 
House during the Fifty-first Congress, and hav- 



156 The Show at Washington. 

ing been defeated for renomination, decided 
that he would be a candidate for the clerkship 
of the coming Democratic House. But along 
in the fall Senator Gorman decided that Crisp 
must be elected Speaker, and that it would be 
unwise, if not impossible, for the South to ob- 
tain both the speakership and the clerkship. 

So he went to Gibson, and said to him : " I 
can't allow you to be clerk of the House, but 
if you will withdraw from that contest I will 
have you appointed United States Senator so 
that you can have the honor of being a mem- 
ber of the Senate for a short time at least."' 
To this proposition Gibson agreed. 

Governor Jackson was told to appoint him a 
successor to Senator Wilson, who had just died, 
and he obediently carried out Gorman's com- 
mands. But the governor's understanding was 
that when the State Legislature met Gibson was 
to be retired to private life and Jackson sent to 
the Senate. In the meantime, however, Gor- 
man had made the discovery that Gibson was 
a very good man for him to have around ; so 
at the proper time he gave the necessary in- 
structions to the Legislature that Jackson should 
be the man to seek the seclusion of private life. 



Told After Adjournment. 157 

It is probably the first time in the history 
of American politics that a man has been put 
in the United States Senate to take him out of 
the fight for the clerkship of the House. 



Bismarck still lives in the person of the Hon- 
orable Leonidas Frederick Livingstone, of 
Georgia, the man who organized the Peoples 
party of the South. When he stands upon the 
floor of the House pleading for economy and 
denouncing the Republicans he presents an 
exact counterpart of the pictures of the Iron 
Chancellor addressing the Reichstag. • 

His favorite expression seems to be, " Sink 
or swim, I am in favor of this bill," and with 
this borrowed peroration he closes all his 
speeches. 



There is a member of the present Congress 
who has the honor of having fought with Edgar 
Allan Poe. This man is Thomas Dunn Eng- 
lish, of New Jersey, who was at one time the 
intimate friend and banker of the eccentric 
poet. One day the two had a quarrel over the 
loan of a pistol, which culminated in Poe mak- 



158 The Show at Washington. 

ing use of an offensive expression which Eng- 
lish resented by a blow. A conflict followed ; 
Poe received the worst of it, and the poet went 
away with a bleeding face vowing revenge. 
This is English's version of the encounter. 



Congressman Edmunds, of Virginia, is very 
fond of telling good stories on himself; but 
there are some that are not told by him, but 
by his friends, and the following is one of 
them : 

The rule in Virginia elections is that the 
Democrats have two judges at each polling 
place and the Republicans one. Halifax coun- 
ty, the home of "Farmer" Edmunds, has a 
tremendous negro population, and it used to 
roll up a Republican majority of considerable 
proportions until the present representative got 
into active politics. When he made his first 
race for Congress it is related that the Demo- 
crats selected for judges of election negroes 
who were not only unable to read, but who 
were excessively fond of liquor. 

At the largest precinct in the county a col- 
ored man of this kind was kept well filled all 



Told After Adjournment. 159 

day, until when the polls closed his vision was 
in a very defective state. Edmunds, as the 
story goes, was present to witness the counting 
of the votes, and it was agreed to divide the 
work so that one white man should receive the 
ballots from the box, and another was to record ; 
and it was arranged, without a murmur on the 
part of the colored judge, that he was to string 
the ballots after they had been counted, as the 
law directs. 

As he was given an extra drink, and a large 
one, and the bottle put near his elbow, the col- 
ored brother seemed perfectly satisfied. 

The count commenced, and when nearly one 
hundred votes had been called out for Paul C. 
Edmunds and not more than a baker's dozen 
for the Republican candidate, the black judge 
said : 

" Look here, gemmun. I knows Massa Ed- 
munds is a mighty popular man in this county, 
but it 'pears to me more votes dan dem went 
in dat 'ere box for de 'publican candidate." 

"You string !" thundered Farmer Edmunds, 
who was standing by watching the count. 
"That's what you agreed to do, you black 
rascal." 



160 The Show at Washington. 

And the black rascal strung and Edmunds 
was elected by a rousing majority. 



Handsome and popular Harry Rusk is the 
Democratic Congressman from Baltimore, and 
is also the chairman of the Democratic city 
committee of that city. He says that his great- 
est service in the latter capacity was inaugurat- 
ing a great and needed reform in the methods 
of voting. 

In the neighborhood of some of the polling 
places of Baltimore are slaughter houses, and 
these the Democrats were wont to utilize to 
carry the election for their side. They would 
capture some wandering fellow, take him over 
to one of the slaughter houses, dip his head in 
one of the vats filled with blood in the yard 
and then chase him to the polling place. 

When the people who were trying to vote 
saw the man with his head covered with blood 
running toward them they would make their 
escape in a hurry and forget to cast their ballots. 
So whenever a party of Republicans were seen 
to approach the polls the Democrats would go 



Told After Adjournment. 161 

through the performance and prevent their 
voting. 

Rusk put a stop to all this. 



Members of Congress have queer tales 
written about them as one of the penalties 
which they pay for greatness. Even the staid 
and dignified senatorial representatives from 
Vermont are not free from this official handicap. 

Senator Proctor and Senator Morrill were 
comparing notes one day. Morrill was wrath- 
ful over the report that had made him out a 
dead shot and a confirmed seeker after game. 

"Why," said the venerable Senator from the 
Green Mountain State, "it's so long since I 
even had a gun in my hand that I do not 
believe I should know the muzzle from the safe 
end." 

" That's nothing," interjected Proctor. " One 
of the latest things I saw about me said that I 
was an accomplished horse breaker, and there 
was a picture supposed to represent me, decked 
out in a swallow-tail coat and cracking a long 
whip at a frisky horse that was dancing around 



1 62 The Show at Washington. 

me on its hind legs like the ringmaster in a 
circus. 

" And the worst of it was that other people 
beside myself saw the article, and it amused 
them so that for the next few weeks my mail 
was filled with copies of this paper picturing 
me as a second Buffalo Bill, acrobat and horse 
trainer. It was a terrible ordeal to go through." 



Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire, is dig- 
nified enough now, but he relates some very 
funny adventures through which he passed 
during his early career as a country peda- 
gogue. It was in a decidedly rural district that 
he met with the most startling experience of all. 
" It was a school that had cleaned out the last 
teacher," he says ; " and as I was only a young 
fellow fresh from the academy, the parents had 
little hope that I would hold their unruly off- 
spring in control. But I did. I was full of 
youthful muscle and I licked every one of the 
big fellows and had them in hand ; but that 
was all. 



Told After Adjournment. 163 

" There was one big Portuguese girl whom I 
couldn't make behave. Mary Jane was too big 
to whip, and scolding didn't have any effect 
whatever. Finally, in despair, I told her before 
the school that the next time she misbehaved I 
should humiliate her before the other scholars, 
and that she had better look out. 

" I was only waiting for the next opportunity, 
and she gave it to me pretty soon. I said : 
' Come to the platform.' She came. ' Sit down 
there,' pointing to the large arm chair I usually 
occupied. She did as I told her, and then 
without further words I sat down in her lap, 
pushed the chair against the wall, braced my 
feet against the desk and went on with the class. 

" The school tittered, but I was too solemn, 
and they soon sobered down. Mary Jane 
began to struggle and object, but I hung on. 
She was as big as I was, and I was beginning 
to think that she would get the better of me 
after all until she burst into a flood of tears. 

" Now I hate tears. It made me feel mean, 
but more angry than ever. She cried to be let 
go. I told her that when she promised to obey 
she could, but not before. Well, the war went 



164 The Show at Washington. 

on for over an hour. She had hysterics, but I 
clung to my seat and kept the classes going 
until, with a last gasp, she promised to obey, 
and I escaped quite as delighted as she. 
" She behaved like a saint after that." 



OUR MIDWAY PLAISANCE. 



THE duties of a foreign minister in Wash- 
ington are not onerous. He sends dis- 
patches now and then to his home government, 
and addresses communications to our own Sec- 
retary of State from time to time. But most of 
his energies are devoted to dancing attendance 
on the world of society. There is any amount 
of red tape wound tightly around the actions of 
a foreign representative. Whatever the min- 
ister wishes to have done by this government 
must be transmitted through the Secretary of 
State. If he wishes a favor of the Treasury 
Department he goes to Secretary Gresham, who 
refers the matter to Secretary Carlisle, and the 
favor is granted. It would be a great breach 
of propriety for a minister to visit the President, 
or write directly to him on any international 
business. The representatives of England, 
France, Germany and Italy, however, have 
recently been promoted to the rank of ambas- 

165 



1 66 The Show at Washington, 

sador, and, as the personal representatives of 
their sovereigns, can enjoy a privilege which is 
denied to all other members of the diplomatic 
corps. 



The foreign ministers in this country receive 
better salaries from their governments than the 
United States pays to its representatives abroad. 
Secretaries of legations are better paid by our 
government, though those of the United States 
are fewer in number. Sir Julian Pauncefote, 
the big, towering British ambassador, who 
looks like Adam Forepaugh, of circus fame, 
gets $30,000 a year, a superb house rent free 
in Washington, on the only piece of land that 
the British government owns in the United 
States, and a liberal allowance for entertaining. 
Our minister to Great Britain gets $17,500 an- 
nually and has to pay his own rent. And so 
all along the line. 

Besides Great Britain the only governments 
which own the establishments occupied by their 
legations here are Germany and Mexico. Baron 
Fava, the Italian Ambassador, has always re- 
ceived $5000 a year from his home treasury 
for house rent, but he has preferred to econo- 



Our Midway Plaisance. 167 

mize by occupying a single room, a practice 
which has caused, him considerable embarrass- 
ment at home. As a rule, however, diplomats 
are not niggardly. 



Owing to the influence of republican sim- 
plicity the diplomats stationed in Washington 
wear their uniforms less and less every year. 
They are obliged to put them on for dinners 
and receptions at the White House given in 
their honor, but everywhere else they appear 
in ordinary evening dress. 

From the aesthetic point of view this is to be 
regretted, for their official costumes are pictur- 
esque and handsome. That of the British 
ambassador is especially gorgeous — of white 
and gold, the chapeau being held under the 
arm. The dignitary who represents China is 
clad for ceremony in rich brocaded silks, of 
bright yellow and crimson ; his cap adorned 
with a huge yellow diamond. 

The superb and by no means unspeakable 

Turk is chiefly distinguished by his fez, while 

the minister from Korea is attired in flowing 

robes of white, with a hat like an exaggerated 
12 



1 68 The Show at Washington. 

fly trap. It must be remembered that Orientals 
regard the wearing of the hat as a sign of re- 
spect, and not the taking of it off. 



The uniform worn by Chevalier de Tavera, 
of the Austrian legation, far outshines them all. 
It is a marvel of splendor and construction. 
Tavera is a man who would attract attention 
anywhere, with his tall figure and erect car- 
riage. Over his black tight-fitting trousers he 
wears high top boots of patent leather. His 
coat is of glistening black velvet, cut in the 
romantic style of the French emperors of long 
ago, edged with black astrakhan, and with 
sleeves of black brocade. The front of the 
coat is encrusted with jewels, while the buttons 
of gold filigree open work are set with a large 
turquoise in the centre of each. In his hand, 
with a practiced grace, he carries a velvet hat, in 
shape like those worn by Spanish bull fighters, 
ornamented with a stiff, straight, red pompon 
of bl ack an djvhite. / ^T^ 

The foreign ministers have sufficient oppor- 
tunity to discharge their official duties, quanti- 



Our Midway Ptaisance. 169 

ties of time to get through with the social de- 
mand, and still find leisure to devote to num- 
berless fads. Most of the attaches of the 
European legations are fond of the saddle, and 
are often to be seen with their feet in the stir- 
rups, particularly in the hunting season. Next 
to horseback, tennis is a favorite amusement. 
The national American game is nowhere, and 
it has not a devotee among the legations, prob- 
ably because it happens to be really American. 
But in tennis the members of the Italian, 
French and British legations fairly revel. 



The tennis court at the British legation, in 
the rear of the red and green castle on Con- 
necticut avenue, is never empty on a pleasant 
day, and the most ardent devotee of all is the 
stately British minister, whom to see in the 
solemnity of the legation coach one would as 
soon accuse of football as of tennis. 

Nevertheless, Sir Julian Pauncefote is always 
on hand for his afternoon game. He is a thing 
of beauty in his tennis suit. It is always 
strictly de rigeur. He never stoops to the 
neglig6 shirt and rolling collar of his young 



170 The Show at Washington. 

opponents ; he looks as if he had just emerged 
from the hands of the haberdasher and the 
laundryman. 



White flannels fit his diplomatic British fig- 
ure to perfection. The coat is tightly buttoned, 
and a soft, gray, felt hat extends from corner 
to corner of his head. His starched high collar 
and rigid necktie cause surprise. 

Sir Julian never stoops for a ball. He hits 
the ball, puts one hand in his pocket, straightens 
up and waits to see what happens next. Gener- 
ally one of the youngsters among the attaches, 
who looks dressed for such business, runs 
around until he finds the ball in the grass. 
When all the balls are located safely on the 
lawn the three other players enter upon a 
search while Sir Julian waits. 



Senor Romero, the Mexican minister, has a 
useful fad that he does not hesitate to gratify ; 
he is especially fond of clocks. Every room 
in the legation contains one, and it takes a 
solid half day to wind them all up. There are 
clocks of all kinds from nearly all the countries 



Our Midway Plaisance. 171 

in the world, and if one of them is out of order 
Senor Romero is always very much concerned. 



The Brazilian minister gets his amusement 
out of pictures. If Mendonca had not been a 
diplomat he would probably have been an art- 
ist, and he spends his leisure time in browsing 
about among old galleries and hunting for 
choice bits in out-of-the-way corners. 

His house contains the finest collection of 
paintings to be found in any private establish- 
ment in Washington. It is known to many 
art lovers, and it is the apple of Senor Men- 
donca's eye. Every country of Europe is rep- 
resented in this collection, which includes the 
first painting from the brush of Corot ever 
accorded a place on the walls of the Salon. 

His son is an artist of considerable repute. 
He has done creditable work with the brush, 
and has a studio in the Catskills, which he oc- 
cupies during the summer. 



The Chinese legation has always been an 
object of curiosity in Washington, and the mys- 
terious goings on in the house which the Celes- 



172 The Show at Washington. 

tials inhabit are a never-failing source of won- 
der and speculation among those who are 
denied access to the charmed precinct. All 
sorts of tales find credence, and the more im- 
probable they seem • from the Caucasian point 
of view the better adapted they appear to be 
to the peculiar Mongolian character. Here is 
one which is said to be really true. 

The monthly bills of the Washington Gas- 
light Company are printed on paper of a pecu- 
liar dirty yellow tint, which happens to be the 
exact hue of the Chinese emblem of mourning. 
The long strips are left regularly at the doors 
of all houses in the city, and at the Chinese 
legation along with the rest. 

Just after the change in ministers the strip 
was left as usual in the vestibule of the lega- 
tion, and, being carried to the new minister, 
affected him profoundly. It was evidently in- 
tended, he thought, as a notification of some- 
body's death, and as it was left at the legation 
door it doubtless indicated' the bereavement of 
some family high in official life. 

The minister at once gave orders to close the 
house. The usual instruments of mourning 
were brought out, the shutters were drawn, and 



Our Midway Plaisance. - 173 

passersby for the remainder of the evening 
were regaled with a combination of curious 
noises, such as the Chinese only know how to 
utter when engaged in bewailing the dead. 



Sir Julian Pauncefote is very careful how he 
allows his carriages to go out of his hands to 
be fixed and painted. He says that he was 
warned to do this before he left England by 
the late Sir John Crampton, who was once the 
English minister here. While Crampton was 
in Washington he sent his carriage to be re- 
paired. When he went to see how the work 
had been done he was surprised to see several 
other carriages decorated with his coat of arms. 
The coach maker thus explained the mystery : 

"When your carriage was here," he said, 
" some of our citizens saw it and liked the pat- 
tern on it and reckoned they would have it 
painted on theirs as well." 



Mr. Ye, the Korean minister, is very short 
of stature and passionately fond of the theatre, 
which probably accounts for the dramatic char- 
acter of this incident. His devotion to his wife 



174 The Show at Washington. 

is very marked. He was driving with her in 
the Smithsonian grounds one day when the 
horses began to run. It became evident to the 
occupants of the carriage that it was about to 
be overturned, whereupon Mr. Ye, with great 
self-possession, leaned quickly forward, and 
snatching the glasses from his wife's eyes, 
threw them out of the window. He thus saved 
her from having the glasses broken in her eyes 
when she was thrown out of the carriage a 
moment later. 

Senor Romero, the Mexican minister, is the 
most popular of all the diplomats in Washing- 
ton. He is slight of stature, of dark com- 
plexion and at all times and on all occasions 
of a dignified appearance. To one thing he 
is strongly opposed, and that is the wearing of 
a uniform. When he appears at public recep- 
tions he dresses completely in sedate black, 
without sign or semblance of martial trappings 
and gewgaws which go to make up for some 
the chief attraction of the diplomatic service. 



One secret of Minister Romero's popularity 
in Washington is the personality of Madame 



Our Midway Plaisance. 175 



Romero, who is an American by birth. The 
entertainments at the legation are in high favor, 
and it was at their house that the custom of 
giving afternoon Germans and dances was in- 
augurated. On Madame Romero's reception 
day as many as two thousand cards have been 
left, not all from society people either. 

One day a woman in deep mourning pre- 
sented herself, and after paying her respects to 
the receiving party, sat down on the stairway 
and staid there until after the last guest had 
departed. Then she arose and bade her hostess 
adieu. 

" Pray, excuse me," she said. " I belong in 
Alabama, and I'm on my way home. I live 
the life of a recluse, though before the war I 
was gay enough. Seeing the crowds coming 
in here to-day it occurred to me that I never 
should see more of Washington at one look 
than I should by coming in. So here I am." 

With her usual tact Madame Romero kept 
back the smile she felt coming, and merely 
said: 

" I am glad you enjoyed yourself. Come 
out and get some refreshments." 

Imagine the consternation of both hostess 



176 The Show at Washington. 

and guest at the sight of a table bare as Mother 
Hubbard's cupboard, the uninvited guests, with 
the help of the invited, having left not a scrap 
of food behind. The butler explained : 

" They all wanted lemonade, then punch, 
then tea from the samovar and chocolate from 
the gold pot, and scalloped oysters, ices, glac£d 
fruits and cakes, and some of them ate of every- 
thing. No wonder nothing is left." 

"Oh, yes!" said Madame Romero, turning 
to the flowers on the table ; " they have not 
taken or eaten these," and she took down great 
bunches of American beauties and piled them 
up on the arms of her uninvited guest. 



Senor Quesada, the Argentine minister, will 
be remembered in Washington for some time. 
A volume might be filled with his quaint say- 
ings and expressions of aristocratic opinions. 
He was several years in Washington before he 
learned enough English to make himself under- 
stood, yet he had had several teachers. He 
tried a new one every few months, but he de- 
clared that he could never learn because he 
could not find a really good teacher — that is, 



Our Midway Plaisance. 177 

one to whom he could give his undivided at- 
tention. 

One did not answer because she was pretty ; 
another was fascinatingly ugly; but one was 
especially bad because her dress was a misfit 
in the back, and so horribly cut hat it spoiled 
what might have been a good figure, and he 
was unable to look at the blackboard on which 
she wrote English words for his instruction so 
absorbed was he in contemplating her back. 
He could not stand anything so shocking to his 
aristocratic nerves, and so dismissed the teach- 
er, although she was a noted instructor. 



The Peruvian minister, Mr. Yrigoyen, lives 
with his wife in a quaint bijou house. It looks 
like a dainty doll's house, and is filled with 
Peruvian furniture. For a long time after com- 
ing to this country Mrs. Yrigoyen did not like 
the United States. It is only recently that she 
has got over her fear of a rain storm. Until 
coming to this country she had never seen 
rain, and the cloud-covering sky and the pat- 
tering drops filled her with alarm. It hap- 
pened that her husband was out during the 



178 The Show at Washington. 

first storm she encountered — a rain storm — and 
she, unable to speak or understand English, 
was almost panic-stricken. 



Mavroyeni Bey, the young Turkish minister, 
aspires to be a society leader. A young host- 
ess was issuing verbal invitations to her friends 
for an informal five-o'clock tea at one of the 
fashionable gatherings. The minister, over- 
hearing her, smilingly begged that he might be 
included in the list, and at the same time 
called out to his secretary, who entered the 
room : " Monsieur EfFendi, mademoiselle has 
asked me to tea with her at five o'clock to- 
morrow. Remember the engagement for me." 

The following day the party met early in the 
afternoon at the White House, and, upon see- 
ing his hostess-to-be, he crossed the room, say- 
ing : " Is it not this afternoon at five that I am 
to have the pleasure of taking tea with you ? " 

"I do not remember," was the response of 
the young lady. " Ask your secretary." 



Not long ago Washington society was being 
discussed in all its phases over the walnuts and 



Our Midway Plaisance. 179 

wine by a party of wits, when one of the most 
cynical of the company capped the climax of 
criticism by suddenly interpolating : " Wash- 
ington society can be briefly summed up in the 
four G's — giggle, gabble, gobble, go." 

Baron Fava, the Italian ambassador, who 
was one of the group, said that on his recent 
trip to Italy he had been asked whether there 
was really any difference in Americans. " Oh, 
yes," was his reply ; " there is a difference. 
Some are rich and some are not." 



Baron A. von Saurma-Jeltsch, the new Ger- 
man ambassador, is not only a diplomat of a 
high order, but a student, deeply versed in 
scientific and archaeological lore. He belongs 
to an ancient Silesian family, and has a castle 
on the family estate near Breslau, which he 
keeps up and visits during his leaves of absence. 
The large park around the castle is full of game, 
and it affords fine fishing. The Emperor 
William has visited the Baron there, and has 
taken keen delight in the hunt in the adjacent 
mountains. 



i So The Show at Washington. 

One of the interesting things at the German 
legation is the collection of photographs left 
there by Mr. Von Mumm, for a long time the 
German representative here. Von Mumm is 
an amateur photographer of great enthusiasm 
and much skill, and the result of his work in 
Washington is one of the most entertaining 
collections of up-to-date pictures to be found 
anywhere. There are about a dozen and a 
half large albums. One is worth a couple of 
hundred dollars, and there are plenty of people 
in Washington who would gladly give double 
that sum for its contents, since it contains like- 
nesses of numerous society belles, who, in un- 
conventional attitudes, have been perpetuated 
by Von Mumm's camera. 



The Chinese minister is popular, especially 
with women. He distributes gifts with a gener- 
ous hand, and, like all the members of his lega- 
tion, he is fond of young society girls, the 
younger the better. At a reception one after- 
noon his almond eyes fell upon the little viva- 
cious, ten-year-old grand- daughter of Senator 
Palmer. 



Our Midway Plaisance. 



The minister immediately asked for an intro- 
duction to the little maiden, and devoted him- 
self to her while he remained at the reception. 
Everybody crowded about, but all unconcerned, 
through his interpreter, he carried on an inter- 
esting conversation with the equally unem- 
barrassed little girl. The grown-up ladies were 
unnoticed by him. 

Next day the minister's carriage drew up in 
front of Senator Palmer's door and an attache 
delivered to the child a packet containing six 
exquisite silk handkerchiefs, embroidered in 
the highest style of Chinese art, and two little 
chests of the kind of tea which Chinese gods, 
on a Chinese Olympus, make Chinese nectar of. 



IN THE MILLIONAIRES' CLUB. 



SENATOR GALLINGER, of New Hamp- 
shire, once had eulogies adopted upon his 
noble character on the supposition that he was 
dead. During his early manhood Gallinger, 
while studying medicine in Ohio, passed his 
leisure moments in acting as a compositor in a 
printing office in Cleveland. He joined a 
typographical union and became pne of its 
leading members. 

When he first came to Washington, as a 
member of the House, he encountered one day 
a man from Ohio whom he knew in his print- 
ing days. The man looked at him with the 
greatest amazement, and rubbed his eyes as if 
he were looking upon a ghost. 

He informed Mr. Gallinger that the typo- 
graphical union to which he belonged had re- 
ceived in some way the news of his death, and 
had thereupon passed the most laudatory res- 
olutions extolling his character and good 
qualities. 



In the Millionaires' Club. 183 

Kyle, the Alliance Senator from South 
Dakota, has seen a varied career. While 
studying theology at Oberlin he met a young 
French lady, who was at college in the same 
town. The two fell in love with each other, 
and as soon as she completed her musical edu- 
cation he married her. Young Kyle then 
started out to preach. His wife followed his 
fortunes among the Mormons of Utah, among 
the gold diggers of Colorado and the cowboys 
of the Western ranches. Wherever he thought 
it was his duty to go as a missionary preacher 
she went with him, and she was with him in 
Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he was preach- 
ing at the time he was elected to the Senate. 



" What is your amusement ?" Senator Peffer 
was asked. "Well," he said, negatively, "I 
don't attend theatres, nor base ball, nor dog 
fights, nor cock fights, nor horse races ; I don't 
play cards, I don't play billiards." Then he 
took in his hand as much of his fuscous 
mahogany beard as he could grasp, and 
added, after a minute : " I get the most real 
fun in playing with the children in the street." 
13 



184 The Show at "Washington. 

Wolcott is the enfant terrible of the Senate, 
and manages to shock the staid Senators regu- 
larly several times a week. With his portly- 
form, young face, and short, blonde mous- 
tache, "Ed" Wolcott, as he is familiarly 
called, is the wildest boy in the chamber, the 
most independent and reckless fellow that has 
been there in years. 

True as steel, fearless as the conventional 
wicked one himself, and absolutely without 
caution or tact ; flowery in word and graceful 
in gesture, he is a born orator, and can hold 
the attention of the Senators and galleries when 
speaking as can no one of his associates. 

Wolcott has more clothes than any other 
man in Washington. He is constantly appear- 
ing in new garments, and the closets of his 
residence are filled with those that he has cast 
away. He throws his garments aside after 
wearing them a couple of weeks or so, and 
orders new ones. All his clothes are made by 
a New York tailor, and his bill there runs up 
into the thousands each twelve months. 

But he and his wife are each worth millions, 
and such trifles amount to little in his bank 
account. 



In the Millionaires' Club. 185 

Senator Cockrell never carries an umbrella. 
The harder it rains the better he likes it. 

He simply shakes himself like a water spaniel 
when he gets to the Capitol during a big storm, 
and that is the end of it. 

Vest presented' him with an umbrella once, 
but the great objector has never opened it to 
this day. 

" I wonder why Vest wanted to give me that 
thing!" he remarked, contemptuously. "Is 
he afraid I am going to spoil ? " 



Senator Hill certainly has one good charac- 
teristic, and that is his interest in young men 
and the manner in which he helps them along. 
He has educated a number of boys. While he 
was Governor a lad, named Pierce, lived with 
him at the Executive Mansion and studied 
medicine at his expense. The young man is 
now practicing his profession. Hill has several 
boys whom he is now putting through college, 
and he spends a good-sized amount every year 
in paying the educational expenses of those 
who cannot pay the necessary money them- 
selves. 



1 86 The Show at Washington. 

There are several members of the Senate 
who have a considerable practice before the 
Supreme Court in addition to their duties of 
statesmanship, and, curiously, about all these 
Senators are from the Pacific coast. In the 
number of cases before the Supreme Court, 
Senator Mitchell, of Oregon, probably leads, 
with his colleague, Senator Dolph, a close 
second. These two Senators are invariably 
employed on one side or the other of every 
Oregon case that comes before the Supreme 
Court. Wolcott, of Colorado, has argued a 
good many cases, while Stewart, of Nevada, is 
an expert on mining law, and has a large prac- 
tice in that line. 



Senator Dolph knows silver and all about 
the West, but he is not up in literature. Not 
long ago he introduced a bill for the relief of 
a gallant Union soldier, named Private Mul- 
vaney. Manderson went over to him, and re- 
marked : " I am very glad that you introduced 
that bill, Dolph. Mulvaney and I are old 
friends." 

"Is that so?" responded the Oregon states- 
man. " I am pleased that you take an interest 



In the Millionaires' Club. 187 

in him, and I hope that you will vote for the 
bill. I don't know him myself, but he has 
been highly recommended to me, and it seems 
to be a most deserving case." 

"Yes," replied the wicked Manderson, 
" Mulvaney is the best fellow that ever lived, a 
lively, fighting, big-hearted, lovable, humorous 
Irishman. You will be surprised to know how 
often I have spent the days and nights with 
him in the camp, and how much I enjoyed it. 
By the way," he continued, "I have another 
friend you ought to know. His name is Kip- 
ling — Rudyard Kipling." 

"Never heard of him," said Dolph, as he 
turned away; "but if you are going to intro- 
duce a bill for his relief let me know. I'll help 
you all I can." 

There are very few subjects on which Senator 
Stewart does not entertain violent opinions. He 
used the word "intrinsic" in a peculiar sense 
in one of his speeches, and Senator Dolph 
ventured the suggestion that Webster did not 
sanction such a usage. 

"Webster! What Webster?" growled the 
Senator from Nevada. 



The Show at Washington. 



"Webster's dictionary," responded the mild- 
mannered Dolph. 

"Webster's dictionary!" repeated Stewart, 
in a tone of profound contempt. " I never 
want to have that book quoted to me again. 
Why, every schoolboy in America knows that 
it is nothing but a jumble of words." 



Young Dubois, of Idaho, is making a great 
record for himself. He looks like a boy, and 
that makes his bright sallies and sarcastic flings 
at some of the venerable grandmothers of the 
Senate all the more effective. There is a West- 
ern breeziness about him that reminds one of 
Wolcott. 

George Frisbee Hoar feels toward both of 
them as the benevolent old gentleman felt 
toward the boy who went about leaving bent 
pins in the seats of available e chairs. 



Senator Vance had a curious experience in 
one of his stumping trips in his own State. He 



In the Millionaires* Club. 189 

and a small road circus struck Wilksboro, 
North Carolina, the same day. The proprietor 
of the circus, with an eye to business, thought 
that the Democratic mass meeting would inter- 
fere with his performance. So he boldly went 
to Vance and asked him if he would address 
the crowd from the circus ring under the tent 
and on top of the lion's cage, and thus com- 
bine the two shows. 

Vance thought it would be a good joke and 
consented. So the proprietor had a clown 
mount a chair outside the door and yell out 
this announcement : 

" Step this way, ladies and gentlemen ; here 
is the greatest show on the face of the globe. 
Not only is the show in itself a whole comple- 
ment of wonders and an aggregation of talent 
never before collected together under one 
name, one roof, or on one stage, but it presents 
to-night an additional feature. 

"Step right up, ladies and gentlemen; do 
not be afraid. The lions are caged and the 
monkeys are harmless. As I have remarked, 
we have an attraction to-night which eclipses 
all the wonders of heaven, and sinks into utter 
oblivion all the freaks of earth. This great 



190 The Show at Washington. 

feature, ladies and gentlemen, is a real live 
United States Senator, who will address the 
crowd from the top of the lion's cage. 

" Step right up. Tickets only twenty-five 
cents. We have reduced the price one-half, 
so that all can hear and see the great anti-civil 
service reform Senator, Zebulon B. Vance. 
Step up. Step up, step up, and don't be bash- 
ful." 

This announcement filled the tent. After 
the regular show the lion's cage was drawn out 
into the middle of the ring. A stepladder was 
placed before it and three chairs were placed 
on top. Then Senator Vance mounted this 
rostrum and delivered his speech. It was a 
great success. The people were delighted. 
When the Senator became prosy the lion in 
the cage below grew somewhat restless and 
claimed the attention of the audience. 

The district went heavily Democratic, and 
all because of Vance's speech. 



Vice-President Stevenson has two fads. One 
of them is not keeping his shoes blacked. His 
other is an unwillingness to wield the gavel. 



In the Millionaires' Club. 191 

He has always had a horror of a gavel with a 
regular handle, and back in the days when he 
presided over small meetings in his own State 
he would use his cane or umbrella iijgpreference. 
He has carried this feeling into the Senate 
chamber, and refuses to use the regular ivory 
gavel which has called the Senate to order for 
many years. Of course, in the Senate chamber 
he cannot use an umbrella to preserve order ; 
so he has a straight piece of ivory without a 
handle of any kind, and with this unique piece 
of desk furniture he pounds the sounding 
board in front of him. 



Senator Anthony Higgins, of Delaware, like 
most people of that small State, has sporting 
blood in his veins. He also has Scotch-Irish 
blood, and his Scotch-Irish rather predomi- 
nates. He has too much thrift to allow him- 
self to be the victim of bookmakers. 

Still he is very fond of the races, and attends 
on every possible occasion. He has an unique 
way of betting, and is his own bookmaker. 
He picks out his horse in every race and bets 



192 The Show at Washington. 

whatever he thinks he can afford. But the bet 
is laid with himself. 

He carries two rolls of bills, one in each of 
his trousers#pockets. He bets from the roll in 
his right-hand pocket against the roll in his 
left-hand pocket, which represents the book. 
If the horse which he has bet upon loses he 
simply increases the roll in the left-hand pocket, 
and vice versa. 

He says he can get up just as much interest 
and have as much fun on a race in this way as 
if he were to bet direct with some of the book- 
makers. 



Cameron is the haughtiest man in the Senate. 
He makes no effort to be on good terms with 
his fellows ; he does not even want their com- 
pany. When there is an important matter 
under consideration on the floor, and all the 
Senators are in their seats, he will go off and 
sit alone in the Republican cloak-room. He is 
very fond of his own company, and seeks it on 
all occasions. 

He troubles the Senate very seldom. The 
most of the time that Congress is in session he 



In the Millionaires Club. 193 

is away from Washington, and is in his seat 
but a few days at a time. He never makes a 
speech, and, in fact, his voice is never heard on 
the Senate floor except in motions to adjourn. 
This is his specialty, the making of motions to 
adjourn. 

He looks as haughty as he is, and dresses 
his tall figure as if he were a very young man. 



HEARD IN THE CLOAK-ROOM. 



SENATOR WOLCOTT, of Colorado, tells a 
story of a man who, while travelling in a 
parlor car between Omaha and Denver, fell 
asleep and snored so loudly that every one in 
the coach was seriously annoyed. Presently 
an old gentleman approached the sleeper, 
shook him, and brought him out of his slum- 
ber with a start. 

"What's the matter?" he exclaimed. 

" Why, your snoring is annoying every one 
in the car," said the old gentleman, kindly. 

" How do you know I am snoring ? " queried 
the source of the nuisance. 

" Why, we can't help but hear it." 

" Well, don't believe all you hear," replied 
the stranger, and went to sleep again. 



Speaker Crisp and John R. Fellows, of New 

York, were talking over war times in the 

Speaker's room. "I remember," said Crisp, 

" that in Fort Donelson, when I was a prisoner 

194 



Heard in the Cloak-room. 195 

there, another prisoner, named Colonel Fel- 
lows, from Arkansas, was regarded by us as a 
great orator, and he used to make speeches to 
us two or three times a day." 

Fellows' face broke out into a smile. " I 
was that Colonel Fellows," he said ; " and now 
that you recall it I remember you. You were 
a young chap about seventeen or eighteen 
years old, were you not ? " 

"Yes," said the Speaker; "and you told us 
not to take the oath until we knew for a cer- 
tainty that the entire Confederate army had 
surrendered." 

"I never did take the oath," was Colonel 
Fellows' reply. " 1 held that I owed my al- 
legiance to the Confederate government and 
not to General Lee. I went out on parole, and 
I never have taken the oath except as an 
officer of the government." 

The Speaker took the oath after the war, and 
Colonel Fellows said that he had been better 
treated by the federal government than by the 
Mugwump Democrats. 



Senator Frye, of Maine, is a great stickler 
for the inviolability of executive secrets. When 



196 The Show at Washington. 

Stanley Matthews' name was sent in by Pres- 
ident Hayes for Justice of the United States 
Supreme Court Mr. Frye was one of those who 
declared that he would not vote for his con- 
firmation. Finally Matthews was confirmed 
by just one vote. There was great curiosity to 
know just how each Senator had voted. The 
newspaper correspondents figured out how each 
Republican voted except Frye ; they were un- 
able to place him. To go to him directly and 
ask him would only be to invite a rebuff, so 
they resorted to strategy. One of them, who 
was a close friend of the Senator's, undertook 
the task of surprising his secret. He went up 
to the Senator and remarked, in the most 
casual manner : 

*' Well, Frye, you are a fine man, aren't 
you ?" 

"What's the matter?" inquired the Senator, 
sharply. 

" Why, I thought you told me that you would 
not vote for Matthews' confirmation." 

"Well, I didn't vote for him," was the in- 
dignant reply. 

" Thank you, Senator, that was all I wanted 



Heard in the Cloak-room. 197 



to know," replied the newspaper man coolly, 
and walked off. 



Secretary Gresham plays a very smooth game 
of poker, and it has helped him out in more 
than one case. When Oliver P. Morton called 
upon President Grant in the interest of a man 
whom he wished appointed United States dis- 
trict judge for Indiana, Grant asked: "What 
has become of young Gresham, who was a 
colonel as I remember him ?" 

"Oh, he is practicing law in Indianapolis !" 
said Morton. 

" Well, I used to play poker with him during 
the war," said the President ; " and I took quite 
a liking to him. He was a mighty good, cool 
poker player, and I believe he will make a good 
judge. So if you don't care I will appoint him 
to this place." 

Morton did care, but he was too wise to make 
any objection, and so Gresham got his first 
federal appointment. 



Senator Blackburn tells a good story, which 
illustrates the eagerness of the Southern negro 



198 The Show at Washington. 

for office. The Senator was one day informed 
that " old Mose" had arrived from Woodford 
County, Kentucky, and was waiting to consult 
with him privately on " er 'portant mattah." 

*' Well, Mose," began Senator Blackburn, as 
the grinning African was ushered into his pres- 
ence ; " what brings you to Washington ?" 

" Mars' Joe," replied Mose, impressively, 
" Fse got 'portant bus'ness, sar. I wants er 
orfice." 

"You want an office. Why, Mose, what can 
you do?" 

" Do, Mars' Joe ? What does everybody do 
dat's got er orfice? Bless yer heart, Mars' Joe, 
yer don't un'erstand old Mose. I hain't look- 
in' fo' work, sah ; I only wants er orfice." 

Senator Blackburn, with as much seriousness 
as he could commamd, assured Mose that he 
was powerless to assist him to an " orfice," but 
that he might provide employment in some 
private concern. Old Mose's face fell, but soon 
brightened again. 

"Well, Mars' Joe," said he, hopefully; "ef 
ye kain't get er orfice fo' me, sah, jes' hustle 
eroun' an' git me er pension. I ain't at all 
'tickler, sah." 



Heard in the Cloak-room. 199 

David B. Hill never allows himself to be 
caught with an interview when it doesn't ex- 
actly suit his convenience. A newspaper cor- 
respondent, who was sent to interview him on 
the political situation, found himself baffled, 
for the Senator kept him a full half hour 
without giving him a word that he could use. 
Finally, the reporter, in desperation, said he 
would like to ask the Senator a single question. 

" That request reminds me of a story," said 
Hill. "A genuine Yankee came into New 
York State many years peddling tinware. He 
met a man with one leg and the stump of an- 
other. The peddler's curiosity was aroused at 
once. He determined to know how that man 
lost his leg, and, after scraping an acquaint- 
ance, said, pointing at the remnant of a limb : 

" ' Been in the war ? ' 

" The one-legged man was sensitive and ret- 
icent. His reply was simply : 

" 'No.' 

" The Yankee then began to talk trade, but 
the lost leg was uppermost in his mind. Pres- 
ently he said : 

" ' Mebbe you lost it in a saw mill ? ' 

" ' No ;' was again the answer. 
14 



Idb The Show at Washington. 

"The peddler talked trade again, all the 
time keeping his eye on the reminder of an- 
other leg. At last he said : 

' I'd just like to ask you one question.' 

' Only one ? ' said the man with the crutches. 

' Just a bare one.' 

' Well, go ahead.' 

' How did you lose your leg ? ' 

« It was bit off.' " 
The moral of the story and the discomfiture 
were obvious. 



Secretary Herbert tells a story about an old- 
fashioned justice of the peace down in Ala- 
bama. A man had been arrested, charged 
with an attempt at murder. The justice re- 
leased him on $1000 bond. The fellow jumped 
his bail and disappeared. His bondsman was 
sued in the Circuit Court for the amount of the 
bond. He employed Philip Murphy, one of 
the shrewdest lawyers in Alabama, to appear 
in his behalf. Murphy discovered that the 
bail bond had been drawn up and accepted on 
Sunday. Upon this fact he based his defense. 
The court-room was crowded with men who, 
knowing Murphy's reputation, were eager to 



\Heard in the Cloak-room. 201 



hear his argument. Among them was the old 
justice of the peace who had accepted the bond. 
Murphy claimed that a bond drawn up and 
accepted on Sunday was not valid. 

"Sunday," said he, "is a dies non in the 
parlance of the law. I repeat it, your honor," 
he shouted, addressing the court, " Sunday is a 
dies non juridica — juridica — -juridical ' 

At each repetition of the word "juridica " he 
raised his voice until it sounded like a peal of 
thunder. The old justice of the peace was 
deeply impressed. To his astonishment the 
court declared that the bond was invalid. 

About a month afterward a prominent citizen 
was brought before the same justice charged 
with an attempt at murder. A well-known 
lawyer was at his side. Turning to the justice, 
he said : 

" If your honor pleases, we will waive ex- 
amination, and ask that my client be held to 
bail to await the action of the grand jury." 

"That can't be done," the justice replied. 
" He must go to jail. I'll accept no bond." 

" But, your honor," the counsel said, "you 
have no right to refuse bail. The law requires 
that you shall accept it." 



2o2 The Show at Washington. 

" Not much," the justice answered. " I've 
had one of my decisions reversed by the Circuit 
Court, and I don't intend to give them a second 
chance. It was just such a case as this. I 
commit your client without bail." 

"You will do nothing of the kind, your 
honor," was the lawyer's response. "We have 
our bonds ready, and insist that you shall 
accept them as the law requires." 

At this the gorge of the old justice arose. 
He began to scowl at the lawyer. 

" Do you think I am a dum fool," he blurted 
out ; " and that I learn nothing from experi- 
ence ? If I accept your bond and your client 
runs away Phil Murphy will go up to the Circuit 
Court, run his fingers through his hair, and 
holler, 'Joe Ridica' three times, and the judge 
will reverse my acceptance. No, sir; your 
client must go to jail." 

And to jail he went. 



While the debate on the Wilson tariff bill 
was proceeding in the House a daily visitor to 
the galleries was Henry George, the famous 
single tax theorist, He was very much in evi- 



Heard in the Cloak-room. 203 

dence, as he occupied a front seat. His pres- 
ence gave rise to an amusing incident in the 
members' lobby. Just after the House had 
voted to put all sugars on the free list, Repre- 
sentative Sibley, of Pennsylvania, met Repre- 
sentative "Joe" Hendrix, of Brooklyn. 

" Well, this is free trade with a vengeance !" 
said Sibley. 

" Free trade nothing. It's hell !" indignantly 
responded Hendrix. "Do you know who's 
running things in there ?" 

" Well, it seems to be the free traders just at 
present," was Sibley's reply. 

"No, it isn't the free traders in there," said 
Hendrix ; " it's Henry George up in the gallery. 
They run up and receive their orders and then 
come down and carry them out. The condi- 
tion of things reminds me of the Irishman who 
was riding a mule. By some means the animal 
got a hoof fast in the stirrup, observing which 
the Irishman remarked : ' Faith, and if yez 
are going to get in til the saddle I'll climb 
down.' " 



Secretary Gresham's manner is sometimes 
irritable and domineering, even when he in- 



204 The Show at Washington. 

tends to be amiable and to do a kindly act. 
Judge Thompson, who was first assistant when 
Gresham was Postmaster-General, gives a case 
in point. 

One day while he was talking to a news- 
paper correspondent the Postmaster-General 
came in. He asked what had become of the 
case of the postal clerk arrested for embezzle- 
ment out West. The name of the man was 
N . 

" He is held for trial," said Thompson. '* He 
has had a preliminary examination." 

"Well, I want you to telegraph the District 
Attorney and order the case dropped," said the 
Postmaster-General. 

Thompson gasped. " That is impossible, 
General," he said. "The matter is in the 
hands of the District Attorney. We have noth- 
ing more to do with it." 

" But I want the case dismissed," said the 
Postmaster-General. 

" I must respectfully decline to do so," said 
Thompson. "The evidence against the man 
is unquestionable. He was found with a num- 
ber of decoy letters in his pocket. There can 
be no doubt about his guilt." 



Heard in the Cloak-room. 205 

" I know all about that man," said Gresham, 
impatiently. 

" Then you will have to issue the order," 
said the assistant. " I refuse to take the re- 
sponsibility. It would be a stain on my rec- 
ord." 

" You can say that you act by the order of 
the Postmaster-General," said Gresham. " Tel- 
egraph the District Attorney that the Postmas- 
ter-General instructs you to have the case 
nolled." 

Thompson could not refuse to do this, and 
the telegram was sent. The newspaper corre- 
spondent, who had sat quietly listening to the 
interview, was surprised. As he left the de- 
partment he met a reporter for a local paper, 
who had at one time lived in Indianapolis, and 
who had known Judge Gresham very well. His 

name was also N . The correspondent 

stopped N and told him what he 

had heard. N turned white and then 

red. 

" That was my brother," he said. " I saw 
Judge Gresham about his case yesterday, and 
he promised to have it dismissed." 



2o6 The Show at Washington. 



Senator Gorman is a great joker, and very- 
fond of having his joking take a practical turn. 
He had the tables turned on him, however, at 
Saratoga, where he was resting and drinking 
spring water with Senator Smith, of New Jer- 
sey, during one of the summer months. He 
had been playing his pranks on Smith, and 
the Jerseyman determined to get even with 
him. 

It seems that some time before the news- 
papers told how Senator Gorman, while in 
Saratoga, went out every morning to play ball 
with his son. The Maryland Senator was in 
the habit of playing ball in the evening, but as 
a number of people thought that he deserved 
a great deal of credit for being an early riser, 
he did not make any correction of the report, 
and seemed to be very glad to have it supposed 
that he got up with the sun. 

Senator Smith ascertained that Gorman was 
a late sleeper, and one night proposed that he 
should join him in the game of ball the next 
morning at five o'clock. 

" All right," said Senator Gorman, who did not 
want to give himself away. " As soon as you 
send for me I will come over to the hotel office 



Heard in the Cloak-room. 207 

and join you. We will then go and have a 
game." 

Instead of getting up himself the next morn- 
ing and sending for his Maryland colleague, 
Senator Smith left a note with the night clerk 
of the hotel, with instructions that he should 
send it over to Senator Gorman's room at five 
o'clock. 

The note was delivered to the Senator, and 
he made his appearance in the hotel office 
dressed ready for his game of ball, while the 
New Jersey Senator was taking a deep, morn- 
ing nap. 

Senator Murphy, of New York, is a daring 
horseman. A few years ago he entered into a 
contest with a party of friends to drive a race 
from Saratoga to Troy. The last person to 
arrive in Troy was to pay for a wine dinner. 
The distance is thirty-five miles, and the 
gentlemen did not start from Saratoga until six 
o'clock in the evening, so that before they ar- 
rived at their destination it was pitch dark. 

The driving just outside of Troy is very 
dangerous, even in the daytime, and when it 
is dark it is as much as a person's life is worth 



208 The Show at Washington. 

to drive over some of the roads which run 
alongside the canal and river. 

On this occasion all the other contestants got 
together and agreed that they would leave their 
horses and buggies at one of the towns near 
Troy and ride home on the train. Senator 
Murphy, however, was made of sterner stuff, 
and he continued on his drive to Troy, arriv- 
ing there without mishap, and the only one of 
those who started in the contest. 



Last winter Murphy was still more daring as 
a driver. He started to drive a race against 
one of his sons on the ice down the Hudson 
River. It was a bitterly cold day, and after 
driving a short distance his hands became 
numb, and he was unable to hold the reins. 

The ice on the river was covered with snow, 
and the Senator knew that he could throw 
himself out of the sleigh on the snow without 
any particular injury. The horse was a great 
favorite, and he determined to remain in the 
sleigh whatever happened. Suddenly he re- 
membered that within less than half a mile 
down the ice had been cut, and that if he 



Heard in the Cloak-room. 209 

did not quickly get his horse under control the 
animal would surely plunge into the water and 
be drowned. 

The Senator had but a minute in which to 
try to get the blood circulating sufficiently in 
his fingers to enable him to move them. By 
squeezing his hands between his knees he suc- 
ceeded in getting some control of his fingers. 

Just as the horse was within a few feet of the 
ice-cut the Senator succeeded in wrapping the 
right rein about his body, and by giving a quick 
turn he jerked the animal aside in time to avoid 
plunging into the river by a margin of only a 
few feet. 



Senator Gray, of Delaware, spent part of last 
summer abroad. Mrs. Gray accompanied him. 

On a steamboat on Lake Lucerne he en- 
countered Senator Vance. The North Caro- 
lina Senator came up behind him as he stood 
near the rail by the side of Mrs. Gray, and, 
touching him on the shoulder, greeted him cor- 
dially. When the usual greetings had passed 
between them, Senator Vance asked : 

" Well, as Sandy said, are you travelling for 
pleasure, or is the good wife along ? " 



210 The Show at Washington. 

Senator Jones, of Nevada, in his delightful 
way illustrates with a story the difficulty which 
some of his fellow-Senators experience in ex- 
plaining their sudden conversion from life-long 
advocacy of free silver coinage to gold mono- 
metallism. The Senator related the story dur- 
ing the special session of Congress when the 
administration was trying to force through the 
repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman 
law. 

In a New England village there lived a 
drunken horse jockey, who had a hare lip and 
was born without a palate, and who was nat- 
urally very sensitive as to his deformity. His 
name was Tilman Tremble, and one winter 
there was a great revival, in the course of 
which Tremble was brought to the mourner's 
bench. 

His groans and physical symptoms of an 
awakened conscience were terrible to witness. 
Finally a calmer mood prevailed, and it was 
announced that Brother Tremble would speak 
at the Wednesday night prayer-meeting of his 
experience and conversion. The time came, 
and the meeting was crowded. The plucking 
of this particular brand from the burning was a 



Heard in the Ctoak-room. 21 i 

great justification of good works. The brother 
arose and said : 

" 'Rethren hn hihter. You all know hme. I 
have hived hmong you all hmy hays. I have 
holen, hied and heated. I have been hrunk 
half the hime. I have hroken all the hom- 
manhmenth, but I am now hoin' to head a 
hehher hife." 

Just then a good sister over in the amen 
corner rose and said: "We are all so glad 
that Brother Tremble has given up the devil 
and all his works and come over to the Lord's 
side, and we all want to give him a helping 
hand, but will he please speak a little louder." 

Brother Tremble got a little red in the face 
and started in again : 

" 'Rethren hn hihter. I have hived ahong 
you all hi hays. I have heen a hiherable hin- 
ner, huh now I have reholved to hive a hehher 
hife." 

He was interrupted by a good old man, one 
of the pillars of the church, a father in Israel, 
who rose from beneath the pulpit with his hand 
to his ear and said : 

"We are now witnessing the power of sal- 
vation. Brother Tremble's conversion will be 



212 The Show at Washington. 

the cause of waking many sinners from their 
sins and bringing them into the fold, but will 
he speak a little louder and a little plainer?" 

Brother Tremble's eyes flashed fire. The 
violence of his emotions impeded his utterance, 
but he choked them down and began again as 
loud as he could shout : 

"'Rethren hn hihter. I have heen a hear- 
hul hinner all hy hay, huh I have reholved to 
head a hrihtian hife. Ham your old souls, han 
you*unherhan hat ?" 



ORATORICAL ODDITIES. 



BOURKE COCKRAN is the orator of the 
House. His manner and presence are a 
study. He tapers from the head down, and 
looks like an inverted pyramid balancing itself 
unsteadily on its peak, and he seems constantly 
in imminent danger of toppling over into the 
aisle. As he begins to speak he gazes about 
him with sleepy eyes as if unconscious of the 
peril of a poise which keeps the House and 
galleries nervously expectant of a catastrophe. 
The' Tammany orator always begins his 
oratorical efforts with hands plunged wrist 
deep into his pockets. Then as the flow of 
words becomes more easy out comes the right, 
emphasizing the rolling brogue with an occa- 
sional little deprecatory wave, vaguely flutter- 
ing for an instant in mid-air. As the climax 
approaches the left follows the right into the 
open. The sentences come tumbling over each 
other, the arms begin to work up and down 
213 



2 14 The Show at Washington. 

like pistons, and the clenched fist lands periodi- 
cally upon the desk with a resounding thump. 
The machinery gathers speed, the wheels go 
round and round, the arms fly wildly in the 
air, the hands come together, sentence after 
sentence, with reverberating slaps, and the 
Tammany brave seems carried away like a 
camp-meeting exhorter with the fervor of his 
own eloquence. Then the machinery suddenly 
runs down, the big bulk collapses into the near- 
est seat, the half-closed eyes gaze dreamily at 
the ceiling and the performance is at an end. 



Isidor Rayner, of Maryland, is another orator 
of the fervid type. His frenzy is the efferves- 
cence of his Hebrew blood. He ptflls his 
sleeves to his elbows, prances up and down 
the aisle, charges on the Speaker and retreats 
upon the House, and works himself into a pas- 
sion in a discussion of the dryest details of the 
rules of the House. 



Benton McMillin ranks easily near the head 
of the vociferous orators. He boasts a voice 
that can be heard way out in the corridors when 



Oratorical Oddities. 215 

the doors are closed, but a half hour of use 
breaks it down to a hoarse whisper. When he 
is speaking no other business can be trans- 
acted in the House. Members give up their 
letter writing and wait patiently for the storm 
to pass. All the chairs within a radius of a rod 
are cleared, and their occupants retire pre- 
cipitately to the farthest corners of the hall. 
McMillin rushes up and down the aisle, pound- 
ing the desks remorselessly as they cOme with- 
in his orbit, leaning far forward in his zeal, and 
chasing his retreating associates with his stento- 
rian voice. He is a picture of rude eloquence 
run wild. 



After one of McMillin's impassioned out- 
bursts Tom Reed's incisive nasal sentences 
come as a distinct relief. The Maine leader is 
never vociferous and never aims at eloquence. 
He rises lazily in his comical way and gazes 
soberly for an instant at the other side of the 
House. With his hands suspended indolently 
from the corners of his trousers' pockets by the 
thumbs he talks straight ahead, scarcely modu- 
lating his voice, and sometimes speaking for 
15 



216 The Show at Washington. 

five or ten minutes without indulging in a ges- 
ture of any description. 

When he does gesticulate it is with the left 
arm, which he lifts menacingly and then lets 
fall, but his queer Shakespearean head grows 
red with the exertion at the most effective pas- 
sages, and his home thrusts are usually accom- 
panied with a peculiar crack in the voice that 
makes it almost inaudible, except to those who 
are near enough to catch every inflection. 



On the Republican side of the House is a 
man with a mission, also with a tremendous 
responsibility. He is Johnson, of Indiana, a 
tall, gaunt, raw-boned man, with a beardless 
Gothic face, a large mouth and a lantern jaw 
swung loosely in its socket. His responsibility 
is in representing the district of Benjamin Har- 
rison. His mission is to obtain justice for the 
Southern voters. 

He is the untiring defender of the colored 
voter and the champion tail twister of the Con- 
federate opossum. Upon several occasions 
Johnson has had very narrow escapes from 
personal encounters with members on account 



Oratorical Oddities. 217 

of his enthusiastic oratory. He is perfectly- 
fearless in what he says, and he is so sincere 
and reckless in his sarcasm and denunciation 
that some of the brigadiers from Dixie gen- 
erally get fighting mad whenever he rises to 
speak. 

Johnson's great characteristic, outside of his 
fearlessness, is the tremendous rapidity of his 
speech. He is the fastest talker in Congress, 
and, perhaps, the fastest talker that the House 
has seen since the days of Rufus Choate. He 
sometimes speaks three hundred words a min- 
ute, and he is the despair of reporters and the 
terror of listeners. 

When he gets excited and voluble his frame 
shakes all over, like a corn sheller with an ob- 
structed hopper, as if it were coming to pieces 
in the effort to deliver the words faster than 
the epiglottis could flutter. Even Andrew De- 
vine, that prince of stenographers, who made 
his fame in the Beecher trial, has to take his 
chin off his hand when he reports Johnson. 



Congressman Milliken, of Maine, has his 
name appear in the Congressional Record oft- 



2i8 The Show at Washington. 

ener than any other man in Congress. In 
fact, there is not a day but what the faithful 
pencils of the stenographers represent him as 
taking part in the proceedings. 

^Whenever a member of the House makes a 
speech Milliken is certain to interrupt him by 
asking several questions, no matter whether 
the questions are of importance or not. These 
questions and their answers, are, of course, 
taken down by the stenographers, and the next 
day in the report of the speech in the Record 
appears the name of Mr. Milliken. 

All of the speeches made in the House are 
distributed in large numbers by the men who 
make them among their constituents. Conse- 
quently into every part of the country goes the 
name of Mr. Milliken, for there is no speech 
printed that does not contain his name and 
some questions asked by him. 



Wilson, of Washington, is the emery wheel 
of the House. 

His voice has the rasping sound of a file, 
and when he is trying to catch the Speaker's 
eye he works himself into an anticipatory vibra- 



Oratorical Oddities. 219 

tion and whirl. His favorite play, however, is 
to spring into the midst of an adversary's sen- 
tence unannounced, with a buzz and a whirr 
and a revolving movement that carries havoc 
to the most carefully-turned argument. 

Wilson has a way of saying things that 
catches the fancy of the House. By a single 
one of his lightning interpolations he has fixed 
on "Charlie" Tracey, of New York, the sobri- 
quet of " Cuckoo " Tracey for the rest of his 
political life. 

It was the day the silver repeal bill passed 
the House, and a few days after Morgan had 
said in the Senate that "the clock strikes at 
the White House and the Cuckoos here stick 
their heads out of their boxes to tell us the 
time of day." 

The speechmaking was all done, and Tracey 
got a minute in which to wind up. He as- 
sumed an air of great solemnity, and proceeded 
in patronizing tones to thank everybody who 
had aided him in the passage of the bill. He 
wound up grandiloquently with the declaration 
that he and those who acted with him had 
" followed the lead of the man who, by a great 
majority, had been elected President of the 



220 The Show at Washington. 

United States — Grover Cleveland." As he sat 
down, flushed with excitement, Wilson chirped 
out from the other side of the House, " Cuckoo ! 
Cuckoo ! " and the echo was lost in a chorus of 
jeers. 

Speaking of oratory, the most extraordinary- 
exhibitions of the art are those given by Mar- 
riott Brosius, of Pennsylvania, in the House. 
Brosius has made a special study of elocution, 
and at one time was an instructor in a college 
of oratory. 

He says that one man came to him after 
listening to one of his political speeches and 
declared that he would gladly give a million 
dollars if he only possessed such power of ex- 
pression. Brosius is always sure of an audi- 
ence when he speaks, because he has a faculty 
of waxing eloquent over the most uninteresting 
themes. He can throw fervor and passion into 
a discussion of the multiplication table. 



California has at last surprised the Senate 
with a pair of orators. It had been a silent 
State so long that the memory of man ran not 
to the contrary. But now White and Perkins 



Oratorical Oddities. 221 



form an oratorical combination which is both 
unique and hard to beat. 

White bears a close resemblance to ex-Presi- 
dent Harrison. He has the same style of 
beard and one of about the same color, and he 
is nearly of the same height. When he makes 
a speech the resemblance is still more notice- 
able, for he has a great many of the little tricks 
of gesture and mannerisms that Harrison uses. 
He is a businesslike talker, like the ex-Presi- 
dent, and has a Harrisonian faculty of using 
the proper words in the proper place. White 
is a cousin of Bourke Cockran's and has some 
of that gentleman's oratorical gift. 



Nobody seems to understand how Perkins 
developed his faculty of speech. He was 
brought up on a " Down East " farm, served 
as a sailor before the mast and then grew 
wealthy as a ship chandler. 

He has the style of a Methodist preacher and 
the suggestion is emphasized by a ministerial 
face, a closely-buttoned frock coat, a peculiar 
wagging of the body in gesticulation and a 
choice collection of catchy pulpit expressions. 



222 The Show at Washington. 

" Mr. Speaker, I object." This is a sentence 
which is heard nearly every hour that Congress 
is in session, and none of the members or no 
one in the galleries is compelled to look to see 
who is the author of the remark. It is and can 
be no other than Judge Holman, of Indiana, 
the "watch dog of the treasury," who spends 
his time when out of Congress in devising how 
appropriations can be cut down and during 
Congress in objecting to every favor that the 
members ask of the House. 

To see his tall, spare form rise slowly but 
emphatically from his prominent seat, and his 
sallow, withered face, with its straggling, gray 
full beard, relax from its stolid expression as 
the great American objector shifts his tobacco 
from one cheek to the other and proceeds in 
his terse, indistinct and passionless little speech, 
is to see one of the most unique sights in Con- 
gress and one of the most memorable sights in 
public life. 

Economy is his pillar of cloud by day and 
his pillar of fire by night. To this subject he 
devotes his every energy and upon it he makes 
his every speech. 



Oratorical Oddities. 223 

There is only one orator of the old style in 
the Senate now. This is Daniel, of Virginia. 
He is the only one of the e?ghty-eight who re- 
tains to perfection the Columbian swing and 
balance in his sentences, arranges his rhetorical 
climaxes and develops exordiums and perora- 
tions. 

Down in his own country, where the people 
still retain a love for the classical style, Daniel 
is regarded as a superb orator, and they are in- 
tensely proud of him, but in the Senate his 
facility does not always gain him the rapt at- 
tention which such flights of eloquence would 
have commanded in the days before the war. 



" Joe " Blackburn is an excellent illustration 
of the difference between the style of oratory 
which takes in the House and that which is 
effective in the more sedate and scholarly 
"upper branch." During his service as a 
representative his fiery eloquence used to take 
the House by storm. He would rouse that 
body to the highest pitch of enthusiasm with 
his splendid bursts of impassioned invective, 



224 The Show at Washington. 

denunciation and appeal, but since his promo- 
tion to the Senate he has subsided into silence. 
Such an outburst as the one with which he 
electrified the House during the historic con- 
flict over the approval of the findings of the 
Electoral Commission would be received in the 
Senate with chilly indifference, or perhaps with 
a tolerant smile. It would be regarded there 
very much in the light in which the Supreme 
Court would regard the effort of a lawyer who 
ventured to harangue them after the manner 
he had been accustomed to adopt toward a 
petit jury. 



One of 'the most delightful speakers in the 
Senate is Vest, of Missouri. He is piquant, 
aggressive, epigrammatic and always intensely 
in earnest. His condensed, pugnacious face 
and figure, which give him very much the ap- 
pearance of a lively bull terrier, are reflected in 
his method of debate ; and his mental agility 
makes him an ugly antagonist on the floor. 
Withal, there is a significant gleam in his 
eyes which shows how thoroughly he enjoys 
his oratorical bouts. 



Oratorical Oddities. 225 

Cockrell, of Missouri, is one of the pictur- 
esque talkers of the Senate. He is the counter- 
part of the traditional Uncle Sam in face and 
figure, and if anybody ventures to interrupt him 
in debate he springs upon the intruder with the 
impetuosity of a game cock in battle. 

He leans with his gaunt form far over till he 
nearly loses his balance, and shakes his fist ex- 
citedly in the very face of his antagonist. 

He is like lightning in retort and like a wind- 
mill in action, intolerant of contradiction and 
frenzied in utterance. 

But when he seems to be in a very paroxysm 
of rage his temper is more likely than not to 
be as mild and sunny as a midsummer morning. 



Hill has a style of debate that catches the 
galleries every time. He talks straight to the 
mark and wastes no words. He strikes back 
with an airy intrepidity and confidence that 
make him seem to be constantly getting the 
better of the argument. 

There are few things in debate so effective 
as the way in which Hill pounces upon the 
conjunction "but." He states a proposition 



226 The Show at Washington. 

so clearly that you can see it standing out in 
the air before your eyes. Then he pauses for 
the infinitesimal part of a second, jerks sud- 
denly back, lets his right arm spring up to a 
level with the shoulder, ejaculates the "but" 
as if he had wrapped a whole proposition in the 
single monosyllable, then pauses again, poised 
in the air for an instant, and rushes upon his 
conclusion with such overwhelming force that 
even without understanding a word of it you 
must feel that it is crushing, complete and un- 
answerable. 



The only man in the House who can in any 
measure approach Johnson in the rapidity of 
speech is Catchings, of Mississippi, whose usual 
rate is about two hundred and twenty words a 
minute. 

A remarkable thing about Catchings, how- 
ever, is that he has the reputation of being very 
deliberate, and he is never considered, except 
by the stenographers who take his report, to be 
a rapid talker. His language flows so evenly, 
with such clearness of pronunciation, without 
any attempt at oratorical effect, that stenogra- 
phers who have been unable to keep up with 



Oratorical Oddities. 227 

speeches falling below two hundred words a 
minute have never experienced the least diffi- 
culty in getting every word he says. 



Unquestionably Bryan, of Nebraska, is one' 
of the orators of the House. He is striking in 
appearance, being greatly favored by nature in 
oratorical gifts, and he made his mark in de- 
bate as soon as he entered Congress. He is 
the living image of Samuel J. Randall. 

He has the art of speaking with his audience, 
not to them, and, above all, the art of being 
natural. He has a very pleasing voice and 
handles it with great skill. One of his strong- 
est points is his power of retort, and woe to the 
unlucky individual who endeavors to interrupt 
him. His. wife is a great help to the young 
Nebraska orator. She assists him in most of 
his speeches, does a great deal of reading for 
him, and spends much of her time in collating 
that which will be useful to her husband in his 
work. 

He fell in love with her while he was in col- 
lege. She was a classmate of his and won 
prizes in English, while he was winning fame 



228 The Show at Washington. 

as a college orator. By a curious coincidence 
it was Bryan's birthday when he made the 
speech on the tariff question in Congress which 
gave him fame. 

Bryan learns by heart every important speech 
that he makes, and for days before the time for 
delivery he goes out into the woods, outside the 
city, and delivers it to the trees and the sky. 

Bryan is a great admirer of dramatic effect. 
Whenever he makes a speech of any length he 
has all his accessories carefully arranged be- 
forehand. 



SNAP SHOTS AT RANDOM. 



ADLAI STEVENSON was travelling on a 
Pullman car out West two or three years 
ago. It was before he had become a Vice- 
Presidential possibility, and while his only dis- 
tinction was that of having been the headsman 
of the first Cleveland administration. Editor 
Rosewater, of the Omaha Bee, was on the same 
car. 

Rosewater, who is a little fellow, was making 
his toilet in the dressing-room when he noticed 
a big man with a red face at the next bowl 
vigorously splashing himself with water. Sud- 
denly the big man turned around. 

" Have a drink !" he exclaimed, in a voice 
that sounded to Rosewater like a roar. The 
editor did not know his companion and he 
seldom indulges. But he had a wholesome 
respect for the other's physical proportions, and 
he meekly followed him back into the car. 
The big one hauled out a flask from his pocket. 
229 



230 The Show at Washington. 

'■' My name is Stevenson," he said ; " what's 
yours ?" And then each proceeded to take a 
pull. It was the beginning of a friendship that 
has lasted ever since. 



Tom Reed was lounging down Fifteenth 
Street in an especially good-natured frame of 
mind when a wild-eyed admirer, who had 
taken a drop too much, jumped out from a 
doorway and waving his hand familiarly gave 
him a drunken greeting. It was a startler, but 
the ex-Speaker sized the situation sensibly and 
waved his hand smilingly in return. 

" After all," he remarked, reflectively ; " your 
drunken man is the only really free man. So 
long as he isn't absolutely dangerous or ob- 
noxious he does about as he pleases and no- 
body thinks of objecting. The rest of us are 
constantly cribbed, coffined and confined." 



"Joe" Sibley, of Pennsylvania, is one of the 
most popular men in the . House. The six 
blooded horses which he brought with him 
from his big stock farm are things of beauty, 



Snap Shots at Random. 231 



and they have to be exercised every morning 
before he goes to the Capitol. 

No wonder he is in great demand. There is 
nothing which appeals to the Congressional 
imagination more effectively than a lively bit 
of horseflesh. 

But Sibley would be popular even if he were 
compelled to walk to the Capitol daily. Geni- 
ality and responsiveness ooze out of every pore 
of his ministerial frame. 

It is a great many years since he expounded 
good Methodist doctrine from the sacred desk, 
but he has never been able to divest himself 
entirely of the pulpit attitude and gait, and 
whenever he looks at you with those big, 
earnest eyes you feel instinctively that he is 
going to ask you to lead in prayer. 

His friends say, however, that it is a great 
eye for a bluff, and that the past reverend 
never haggles over the ante. 



M. C. Lisle, M. C, is the youngest member 

of the Kentucky delegation, and he comes 

within a month or two of being the youngest 

man in the House. He is a handsome speci- 

16 



232 The Show at Washington. 

men of a Kentuckian, and he represents one of 
the most peculiar districts in the United States. 
His own county is in the blue grass region, but 
the other counties are up in the mountains. 
When he stumped his district for election he 
had to do it on horseback, and he wound in 
and out among the mountains for weeks with- 
out seeing a railroad train or a hotel. 

Three-quarters of his constituents cannot 
read or write, and Andrew Jackson gets more 
votes among them at every election than in 
any other district in the United States. 



Dennis Flynn is the Republican delegate 
from Oklahoma. He represents the only Re- 
publican State or territory south of Mason and 
Dixon's line. He began life up in Buffalo only 
thirty-one years ago, and when he was a boy 
he used to sweep out law offices. He might 
have swept out Grover Cleveland's, but he 
didn't. 

Flynn rode into Guthrie on the first train 
that carried the boomers, with a postmaster's 
commission in his pocket. He didn't know a 
person in the territory then, but they say he 



Snap Shots at Random. 233 

can now call every man and boy by name. At 
any rate, he is the most popular man in Okla- 
homa, and has things pretty much his own way 
politically. 

"Denny," as everybody calls him, has a 
slight boyish figure, a long clear-cut face, with 
strong aquiline nose and without the suspicion 
of a beard. His hair is black and so are his 
sparkling eyes. His wiry frame is stored full 
of electricity, and you cannot touch him with- 
out getting a shock. 



"Charlie" Foster, the ex-Secretary of the 
Treasury, gave " Cal " Brice his first boost in 
business. He tells this about the Senator : 

"When Brice went over to New York," he 
says, "and began to figure there as a great 
man, it rather took the breath away from those 
of us who had known all about him in Ohio. 
So the first time I met him after he became 
famous I quizzed him about it. 

" ' How do you manage it, Brice,' I asked ; 
' we never thought you were any great shakes 
out home.' 

" ' Oh, it's easy enough,' replied Brice. • You 



234 The Show at Washington. 

want to go on the assumption that ninety-nine 
people out of a hundred know as little about 
things as you do, and you are pretty sure to hit 
it right. Then you must pretend to know all 
about everything, and always give the im- 
pression that there's nothing you can't accom- 
plish. Always say you can do anything that is 
suggested, even if you know nothing about it. 
And then go home and think up some way to 
do it, or else to do something which will answer 
as well. But the main point is always to know 
all about it.'" 



The tallest member of the House is General 
Curtis, of New York. He stands nearly seven 
feet in height, and towers above his associates 
like the Washington monument above the roofs 
of the city. His shoulders are broad, his body 
is well proportioned and he looks like a modern 
giant. Heavy, long-flowing whiskers add to 
the picturesqueness of his personality. 

In the war he performed wonderful deeds of 
valor and personal heroism. He was the hero 
of Fort Fisher, and lost an eye in that great 
struggle. He explains his wound in this way : 
He says that the Confederate general ordered 



Snap Shots at Random. 235 

his men to frighten the Union soldiers by firing 
a volley over their heads. They fired over 
the soldiers' heads, but hit Curtis in the eye, 
and he bears the mark to this day. 



Springer, of Illinois, hardly impresses one 
as a man who was born to be a great leader 
among men. His most prominent characteris- 
tic is his benevolent look, for he has an expres- 
sion of goodness upon his long-bearded face 
that would be a fortune to any Sunday-school 
superintendent or bunco man. With his per- 
suasive manner of speaking, his tall figure clad 
in a Prince Albert of stately black, his beaming 
smile and kindly glance, he looks as if he had 
just stepped out of a group picture of missiona- 
ries. 

But he is emphatically a man of motion and 
energy. Nervous and excitable, restless and 
curious, he is constantly bobbing up and down 
in his seat, takes part in everything that is going 
on, even if it is only a motion to adjourn, and 
is the man of all others who attracts the atten- 
tion of the galleries. 

He never appears in the House without a red 



236 The Show at Washington. 

carnation in his button-hole, and would regard 
himself as en dishabille without this flower. 



Nebraska claims the honor of having the 
homeliest man in Congress. This is Mc- 
Keighan, who is one of the Alliance members 
of the House. A friend and colleague of his 
said, with a touch of pride : 

" Yes ; our State has the homeliest Congress- 
man. McKeighan doesn't object in the least 
to allusions to the unattractive mold in which 
nature has seen fit to cast his physiognomy. 
He has become accustomed to it, and is in- 
clined to wear his present physiognomy, if not 
as a decoration, at least as a kind of badge of 
distinction. His political lieutenant is Daniel 
Nettleton. He is also McKeighan's lieutenant 
in the point of homeliness, and pushes his chief 
closely for first place. Why, in Nebraska we 
boast of having the three homeliest men in the 
United States. According to the popular idea 
Nettleton is one of them and McKeighan the 
other two." 

A group of Congressmen were discussing 
Judge Holman and a resolution he had just 



Snap Shots at Random. iyj 

offered in the interest of economy. Tom Reed 
brought a burst of applause by drawling out : 
" Yes ; I know Holman is styled ' the watch- 
dog of the Treasury,' but I know he never 
bites anything near home." 

Reed is learning to use the typewriter. 
There is a machine in the Ways and Means 
committee room, and this is where he practices. 
He is becoming very proficient, and one day, 
after the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury had 
been telling the committee about the finances 
of the country, the ex-Speaker sat down to 
the typewriter and gave to Bourke Cockran the 
following very interesting opinion upon what he 
thought had been the result of the conference 
with the Democratic committee. Reed's opin- 
ion as written out by him was this : 
=||=qwertySXBBBBNMu?— m;y.,"2fch3xXX 



Culberson, of Texas, is the best lawyer in 
the House, and about the only one to which 
the title of "the silent statesman" can truth- 
fully be applied. Culberson is a man who is 
always being heard, but who very seldom says 
anything himself, Nearly all his speeches are 



238 The Show at Washington. 

made by others, while he sits quietly in his seat 
in the back row. There are twenty-five Dem- 
ocratic members of the House who do his ora- 
torical work for him, and they do it uncon- 
sciously. 

When he wishes to say something upon a 
certain subject he goes to one of these friends, 
talks to him about the matter and gives vent to 
his ideas, and at the next session of the House 
this man arises and gives utterance to the sen- 
timent which Culberson has impressed upon 
his mind. 

Culberson has defended every murderer of 
any account who has been tried in Texas for 
many years, and has never lost but one case of 
this kind, and that was where his client was 
lynched by the crowd during the progress of 
the trial. He is the guardian of the new mem- 
bers of the House, and is ready to help them 
at any time. 

Congressman Kilgore, of Texas, has de- 
veloped into a circus rider of the most sensa- 
tional character. He is very fond of horse- 
back riding, and now takes a new form of 
exercise in this direction. On his native plains 



Snap Shots at Random. 239 

of Texas he practiced the art of bareback rid- 
ing, and also of picking handkerchiefs and 
other small articles from the ground while 
going at full speed. He became proficient at 
this, and now gives exhibitions of his skill to 
his friends on the roads near Washington. 
With his white hair, massive white moustache 
and huge slouch hat he is a picturesque figure 
on horseback. 



Tom Reed is not a believer in sudden sick- 
ness, especially when a man is called upon to 
do work. Dolliver, of Iowa, had made arrange- 
ments to speak in Rhode Island during the 
campaign in that State. But just before the 
time came for his departure he wished to go 
home, and tried to get out of his Rhode Island 
engagement. So he sent a telegram from 
Washington, stating that he was sick, and, 
therefore, could not come. 

Reed happened to be in the Republican 
headquarters in Providence when the telegram 
was received, and it was handed to him. He 
read it, then slowly drawled out : " Telegraph 
back for him to come on at once. He isn't 
sick. If he were sick he wouldn't have tried 



240 The Show at Washington. 

to describe his complaint in a telegram, or have 
used so many words about it;" 

That reply was sent back, and Dolliver went 
to Rhode Island. 



If Senator Pasco, of Florida, should some 
day arise in his seat when a vote was being 
taken in the Senate and actually record himself 
on one side or the other the dignified Senators 
would be thrown into convulsions. Pasco is a 
man who never votes. Since he has occupied 
a seat in the Senate he has put himself on rec- 
ord fewer times than any other member of that 
body. 

Not that he is not on hand, for he is always 
in his seat and very punctual, but he is always 
paired. He has such a good heart and philan- 
thropic nature that whenever any Senator de- 
sires to arrange a pair with him he cannot bear 
to refuse the request, and he is imposed upon 
accordingly. 

So whenever a yea and nay vote is taken the 
voice of the Senator from Florida is heard, as 
he rises from his seat and solemnly announces 
what everybody in the chamber knows before- 



Snap Shots at Random. 241 

hand, that he is paired ; and a general smile 
plays upon the faces of his associates when he 
makes this announcement. 



Any one who has an acquaintance with the 
features of the innocent-looking face of hand- 
some Congressman Durburrow, of Chicago, 
will appreciate this story which he tells on 
himself. 

He conducted a hard campaign for re-elec- 
tion, and during its progress some of his en- 
thusiastic constituents had a fine lithograph 
with the Congressman's features printed and 
posted on every bill board and dead wall of 
the city. Along came the employees of a rival 
bill-posting concern sticking up the name of a 
coming farce comedy, and thereafter under 
every picture of Durburrow's face was this line 
in startling letters : 

" Innocent as a Lamb." 

Durburrow says that his widely-advertised 
innocence must have stood him in good stead, 
for he was re-elected by over eleven thousand 
in a district which usually sends a Republican 
to Congress. 



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